


Buckle Down

by orphan_account



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Light Bondage, M/M, Restraints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-10
Updated: 2013-03-10
Packaged: 2017-12-04 22:14:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 24,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/715692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris could really use some help buckling down. Darren offers his services. Things get complicated, as they sometimes do. Also, hotdogs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Buckle Down

**Author's Note:**

> Posted this a few months ago to Tumblr, decided to archive it here, too.

Chris circles his left wrist with two fingers, checks his hair in the mirror, and very carefully does not look at the small collection of leather cuffs atop his dresser

 

“Hey sweetcheeks!” Ashley’s voice echoes up the stairs. “We’re gonna be late!”

 

“I’m coming!” he hollers back, meeting his own eyes in the mirror and shaking his head at himself. “You don’t need it.”

 

He says it again, breathes it to himself as he buttons his vest and clomps down the steps, dress shoes clapping against polished wood, “Don’t need it don’t need it don’t need it.”

 

He makes it all the way to the car, Ashley’s hand tucked in his elbow, her familiar chatter glancing off of him. He opens the door for her, but interrupts a story about some sort of cat shenanigans when the soft, flimsy fabric of her dress flutters against his arm, brushing over the back of his hand. “I forgot something. I’ll be right back.” He kisses her cheek as she looks knowingly at his naked wrist, and then turns, jogging up the short path to the front door as his blood pounds in his ears.

 

He takes the steps two at a time once he’s inside.

 

A shiver runs through him, hot and then cold, when he slips the leather around his wrist, pressing it tight against his pulse until it snaps in place. He blows a slow breath out, careful to keep it steady, and lets his shoulders slump.

 

Brian meows plaintively from his spot on the bed, and Chris turns to pet him, avoiding his own gaze in the mirror.

 

“It’s just for a little while,” he lies.

 

Brian, indifferent, tilts his head up for scratches and doesn’t comment one way or another.

 

*

 

“Chris!” “Chris!” “Over here, Chris!”

 

Chris stuffs his hand into his pocket, pushes his wrist against his side until the leather catches, digging into his skin. He blinks against the flashing bulbs and takes a few steps down the carpet.

 

“Give us a smile!”

 

He smiles.

 

*

 

“Chriiisss!” Lea shouts and slurs at the same time, motioning for him to come over. When he gets close enough, after weaving his way through bopping and chattering party-goers, she tugs him clumsily into her lap, laughing and clinking their drinks together.

 

“You look very pretty tonight!” she shouts in his ear, vying to be heard over the buzz of music and conversation and the clink of ice in tumblers.

 

“Not as pretty as you!” he responds after a beat. His breath stirs the damp tendrils of hair around her flushed face.

 

“I like your bracelet!” she giggles, and then there are cold fingertips wriggling between his skin and the leather of his wrist band.

 

He tamps down the urge to jerk away from her exploring fingers and rescues her colorful drink before she tips it into his lap.

 

“How much have you had?”

 

She shrugs and giggles again. “I dunno. Hey! We should sing! Chris!” She tugs at his wrist. “Chris, baby, we should sing!”

 

No, they really shouldn’t. “Hey look!” He points, shaking Lea’s hand from his wrist and sliding off her lap.

 

She follows the line of his finger and spots Cory, tucked in a corner and nursing a bottle of water.

 

“Duet!” she declares, eyes slightly crazed, and Chris lets her go, watching her make her way across the room.

 

“How ya doin’?” a voice murmurs in his ear, making him jump.

 

“Jeeze, Darren!” Chris exclaims, spinning around.

 

“What?”

 

Chris shakes his head, laughing at himself. “Nothing, just… You snuck up on me, is all.”

 

“Sorry!” Darren says, clapping him on the shoulder and graciously ignoring how silly the idea of sneaking up on someone in a room so loud. “Hey, I need a favor.” Darren bounces a little, and Chris finally notices the flush on his cheeks.

 

“What is it?”

 

“I need you to introduce me to someone.”

 

Chris cocks his head, and Darren leans in secretively, practically vibrating with excitement. “ _Ricky Martin is here_!”

 

“He is?” Chris looks around for a second and then back at Daren, staring for a moment before it clicks. “Oh! You weren’t here for that episode!”

 

“Right,” Darren nods, jerking his chin semi-inconspicuously towards a group of people in the corner. “There he is. I can’t just go up to him and start talking. I need an in.”

 

Nodding, Chris squints and finally recognizes the familiar upswept shock of hair, his stomach swoops and tightens pleasantly for the first time that night. “Okay.”

 

“You’re my in,” Darren says, looking at Chris very intently.

 

“Yeah, no, I got it,” Chris assures him. Darren takes a deep breath, motioning for Chris to lead, and Chris, grateful for something to do, begins to weave his way across the floor.

 

 

***

 

 

Darren stands back slightly as Chris greets Ricky with a familiar hug, and then turns to the man standing next to Ricky, his partner, Darren presumes, and hugs him just as tightly.

 

Tilting his head, Darren watches with a newfound interest as the man, introduced as Carlos by Ricky himself, wraps a hand around Chris’s wrist and settles Chris in by his side. His fingers slide slowly back and forth across Chris’s skin, just below the ever-present band of leather on his wrist, and Darren blinks a few times before realizing Chris is actually talking about him.

 

“-is Darren. He’s a big fan.”

 

“Huge fan!” Darren says, looking up to see Ricky studying him, eyes warm but calculating. His grip, when he takes Darren’s outstretched hand, is not painfully tight, but it’s firm, and he holds on for a beat after Darren tries to let go.  Darren lets his gaze flit momentarily to Chris, who’s still tucked up close to Carlos, wrist held tight but posture relaxed.

 

“You’re the boyfriend,” Carlos says.

 

“On screen,” Ricky amends before Darren or Chris can, and there’s still something kind in his smile, but it’s sharp as well, and Darren wonders what the hell he got himself into.

 

“That’s me.”

 

“Well, on-screen boyfriend Darren,” Ricky says, the words rolling off his tongue briskly. “What do you say we go get these two lovely men some drinks?”

 

“Oh,” Darren blinks, startled into a jerky, half-formed sort of head shake. “Yeah, sure.” He turns to Chris, about to ask him what he wants, but Ricky is already steering Darren towards the bar, arm firm and unyielding around his shoulders as he urges them around and then forward.

 

He’d had a spiel prepared, a short but heartfelt speech about how genuinely awesome he finds Ricky. He’d even gone over it in his head a couple of times before he went up to Chris. Now, though, with Ricky’s arm a solid bar across his shoulders and something altogether weird going on with Chris and Ricky’s partner, Darren doesn’t know what to say, let alone think.

 

“So,” Ricky says, breaking Darren out of his reverie. They’re at the bar. “What’ll it be, hmm?” Ricky signals the bartender and then turns expectantly to Darren.

 

“Oh, I’ll uh, I’ll just have a whiskey sour.”

 

“And for Chris?”

 

Darren looks over his shoulder, back to where Chris and Carlos are conversing, heads ducked together. “Um, I don’t know, I didn’t get a chance to ask.”

 

Ricky nudges his shoulder, “You’ve been out with him before, yes? What does he like?”

 

“Oh, uh.” Darren licks his lips and thinks back. “He usually sticks with shots and chasers.”

 

“And is that what he  _likes_?” Ricky asks, a curious weight to the question.

 

Turning to face the bartender, Darren takes a deep breath and orders a strawberry margarita. One of Ricky’s hands smacks against his shoulder blade and then slides up, resting low on the back of Darren’s neck.

 

Darren feels, for some reason, like he just passed a test.

 

***

 

Chris sighs, huge and so much looser than he’d managed at the beginning of the evening, and slumps against the back of the seat as they pull away from the curb in the car Darren hired for the night. He sends Ashley a congratulatory text and tells her to go easy on the guy she’s bringing home. He’d looked a little soft when Chris had spied them dancing earlier. Text sent, he drops his head back and closes his eyes.

 

“So,” Darren says, voice breaking the comfortable silence in the back of the car and making Chris roll his head over and blink his eyes open lazily.

 

“Hmm?”

 

“Ricky and Carlos, huh?”

 

Chris can feel his whole body go still and stiff as his eyes open fully. “What?”

 

“You seemed…” Darren licks his lips and leans back slowly so that they’re looking straight at each other. “Close.”

 

“No,” Chris says, shaking his head and attempting to glare Darren into submission. “Nope, not talking about this.”

 

“So there  _is_  something to talk about,” Darren surmises, a shrewd look in his eye.

 

“Not with  _you_!” Chris exclaims, wriggling around until he’s facing the other way and cross his arms over his chest.

 

He hears Darren sigh and then feels a gentle, warm pressure at his back.

 

“No.”

 

“Chris-”

 

“Ah!  _Shh_.”

 

To Chris’s relief, Darren doesn’t say anything more. His hand stays on Chris’s back, though, thumb sweeping across Chris’s shoulder blade every so often. Chris stares at the window, jostling vaguely with the movements of the car, and wonders whether he wants Darren to stop touching him or not.

 

They stay that way until the car pulls up outside Darren’s place, and Chris finally shifts around until he’s facing forward again, Darren’s hand sliding away from him as he leans back.

 

“So uh,” Darren starts, unbuckling his seatbelt and resting his fingers on the door handle. “We should hang tomorrow.”

 

“Why?” Chris asks suspiciously, turning to squint at Darren. He very carefully does not reach for his left wrist.

 

“…’Cause we’re cool and cool people hang out together?”

 

Chris clears his throat softly and faces forward. He licks his lips and finds himself nodding. “Call me.”

 

Chris hates himself a little for letting those two innocuous little words cost him so much, but he  _knows_. He knows Darren won’t actually let this thing go. He knew it before he said them, but the way Darren’s face lights up cements it in his mind. Tomorrow is going to be amazingly awkward.

 

When he gets home, after he’s refilled Brian’s water dish, gotten ready for bed, and wound himself up tight in his blankets, Chris reaches up with his left hand, wrapping his fingers around a bar in his headboard. The snap on the cuff he hasn’t taken off yet clanks weakly against the metal, and Chris closes his eyes with a sigh, sinking into a restless sleep.

 

***

 

Darren manages to wait until the afternoon to text Chris, telling him to come over whenever, that he’s just working on some music stuff. He hits send with a relieved exhalation and then looks around at his little closet-cum-studio. He really should work on some music stuff, but he can’t seem to settle his bones down enough to focus on any one thing.

 

Chris texts about (exactly) seven minutes later, saying he’ll be over in an hour. Darren gets up and wanders downstairs, briefly considering tidying the place up before he decides to just take a shower. Maybe he’ll shave.

 

He doesn’t shave.

 

Chris, when he shows up twenty minutes later than he said he would, has obviously shaved. He’s also wearing that cuff again, black leather snug around his wrist.

 

Rubbing a hand self-consciously over his prickly almost-a-beard, Darren leads Chris into the living room and recalls idly that Chris is _never_  late.

 

“So,” Darren says, plopping himself down next to Chris on the couch. “You wanna watch a movie?”

 

“Look, Darren,” Chris starts, and Darren knows that voice. That’s the voice Chris uses with guys who approach him with requests for an autograph and then a date, the guys Chris listens to politely before gently but firmly telling them, ‘thanks but no thanks.’ Darren is being humored. “Just say what you want to say so we can get this over with.”

 

“Okay,” Darren says, blowing out a long, slow breath. “Okay, so. I know that you’ve decided you don’t wanna hear whatever it is I’m going to say, and I know that this maybe really isn’t the type of friends that we are, but I just want you to know that you can tell me anything.” He holds up a hand when Chris opens his mouth, and takes a deep breath before continuing, a little too quickly, “Something’s wrong, and it has to do with things we don’t really talk about.” Darren’s eyes flicker down to Chris’s wrist, to his fingers wrapped tight around the leather there, and then back up to his carefully blank face. “But I just- You should just know that you can talk to me about anything.” Darren nods. “Anything.”

 

Chris stares at him, and his lips part slightly as he breathes in, chest expanding with the fullness of it. His eyes are still shuttered, and his posture is perfect, and when his lips seal back in a thin line, Darren looks down at the floor, feeling a little like he’s lost him already.

 

“This is the last thing, I promise, but you should just know that one time in college I let a girl put my dick in a hotdog bun and squirt ketchup on it.” He feels lighter, somehow, after the confession, but realizes immediately that it requires some explanation. “It was the weirdest blowjob in the history of weird blowjobs and sometimes when I’m around someone eating a hotdog I still get a really uncomfortable boner. So.” He looks over at Chris, who is looking back with a dumbfounded expression on his face, mouth open again, and slack. Darren presses on, “I mean. You really  _can_  tell me anything. And I know how weird and hard it is to navigate relationships, even friend relationships, especially when you like something that isn’t exactly normal, so if you ever wanted to talk about…” He trails off and waves his hand in the general direction of Chris’s lap, where his arms are pushing stiffly against his thighs. “ _It_ , I won’t judge you.” Chris still hasn’t closed his mouth. “Also, please don’t tell anyone about the hotdog thing.”

 

Darren watches carefully as Chris slowly closes his mouth.

 

“Is- um,” Darren clears his throat and shifts, suddenly extremely uncomfortable. “Are you gonna say anything, or sh-”

 

“I like to be tied up,” Chris says in a rush. His hands splay out on his thighs, nails digging in, and his cheeks start to turn red. “Like, restrained, that’s- Ricky and Carlos, they helped me figure stuff out.”

 

“Oh.” It’s not terribly surprising, given what he already knows, but it still takes a moment to process. Once it does, Darren snorts, leaning over to bump their shoulders together. “Pretty sure Ricky has helped a _lot_  of young men figure stuff out.”

 

Chris rolls his eyes but doesn’t seem as closed off as before, a sneaky smirk edging in at the corners of his mouth.

 

“That’s really cool, though, right?” Darren hazards. “I mean, you popped your kink cherry in a threesome with  _Ricky Martin_. That’s amazing.”

 

Shrugging, Chris slumps against the back of the couch and picks at the denim stretched across his right thigh. “It’s a lot to live up to. To lose. It’s not like I’ll be able to find it again. Imagine if I tried it with the wrong person.” Chris shudders, and Darren gets a sinking, panicky feeling in his gut just thinking about it.

 

He turns and leans back, settling next to Chris with a sigh. “Imagine how hard it would be if you could only get off to hotdog blowjobs.”

 

Chris snorts. “Being re _strained_  while getting hotdog blowjobs.”

 

“Relish all up on your junk and you can’t do anything about it,” Darren says, grinning and scrunching his nose up at the same time.

 

“Dick mustard,” Chris declares, which makes them both giggle a little too hard.

 

When Darren looks over, though, when they’ve stopped laughing, Chris doesn’t look happy. He mostly just looks resigned.

 

“I… I can do it for you,” Darren says as he realizes it.

 

“Don’t-” Chris closes his mouth and looks to the ceiling before standing up and shuffling around behind the couch, putting it between them. His voice, when he uses it again, is hushed and kind of scratchy. “No. Okay? Just-”

 

Darren shakes his head, reaching out for one of the hands Chris had rested on the back of the couch. Chris pulls back before Darren can pat his hand soothingly like he had planned. “Look, it doesn’t have to be a sex thing.” Pushing himself to his feet, Darren moves to stand behind the couch as well, hitching one leg up and leaning against it before he gets close enough to spook Chris again. “I mean, you wear, you wear that cuff like all the time,” Darren points out, careful not to look at it directly. “And, you know, some things are great on their own and just like, an added bonus during sex.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“Uh… Chocolate.” He thinks. “Strawberries.” He thinks some more. “Whipped Cream?”

 

 Chris shakes his head, pointing at Darren. “Those are all foodstuffs. You’re biased from the hotdog thing.”

 

Wincing, Darren wracks his brain. “Well… Massages! And peeing, I guess, could be one.”

 

Chris stares blankly at him, and then moves, backing away and starting to hold his hands up.

 

Darren snatches Chris’s hand out of the air midway through his gesture and shakes it triumphantly. “Hand holding!”

 

“You’re so  _cheesy_ ,” Chris mutters, tugging his hand back and turning away.

 

“Look, we hang out all the time, right? Why couldn’t we just… hang out while you’re… you know,” Darren finishes feebly.

 

Chris’s voice is a little rough, but still plenty sarcastic when he turns around and rolls his eyes. “Handcuffed to a headboard?”

 

“Uh,  _yeah_.” Darren says, trying in vain to imbue his response with a sense of  _everything’s fine here, you don’t have to be freaked out_. He’s pretty sure he fails. He’s also pretty sure that the mental image of Chris handcuffed to a headboard is going to pop up and distract him at extremely inconvenient times for the foreseeable future. “We could just try it. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. You don’t like it we forget about it and do something else.”

 

Chris looks at him, eyes searching for something as his right hand worries methodically at and around the leather on his left wrist, rubbing hard and leaving pink streaks on his skin from the pressure. “You have such a savior complex, I swear to god.”

 

 

***

 

 

He says yes. Of course he says yes.

 

He’s not really expecting that much, or anything at all, besides extreme and possibly traumatic amounts of awkwardness, but there’s still a chance, an infinitesimal chance that he’ll get back a little bit of what he tasted with Ricky and Carlos. Having people who wanted the same things he wanted, who wanted  _him_ , people he trusted, holding him down and using him up.

 

The most he can get out of what Darren has proposed is feeling a little bit lighter, if it goes right and he can let go. Maybe his shoulders won’t be so tight for a little while. Maybe he’ll be able to go out in public without a freaking bondage cuff on his wrist.

 

Maybe he should clean up a little before Darren shows up.

 

An hour later, looking around at the spotless floors and perfectly placed knickknacks and couch pillows, Chris sighs at the sterility. He should probably mess some things back up.

 

He ruffles up the blanket on the back of the couch and puts a few DVD cases on the coffee table, shoving a stack of magazines until they fan out a little. Kicking the line of shoes by the front door as he walks past so they aren’t perfectly aligned, he heads to the dining room where he knocks a couple chairs out of position and sets a book on one of the placemats for no reason at all. He wonders, as he tries to find the perfect way to misplace an apple from the fruit bowl, how exactly he reached this point. Putting the apple back in the bowl with a sigh, Chris hangs a banana over the edge of it, instead, and then leans over to pet Brian when he winds his way around Chris’s feet.

 

There’s a knock on the door, because Darren never rings doorbells if he can help it, and Chris rubs a knuckle under Brian’s chin, taking a deep, calming breath. He can do this. What’s a little bondage between friends? He can totally do this.

 

Opening the door to see Darren’s hopeful, excited face, Chris sucks in a deep breath. “I can’t do this.”

 

Darren’s face falls, but not for long. Shrugging, he pushes passed Chris and into the house, carrying a long box. “Okay, but you have to check this stuff out.”

 

“What is it?” Chris asks cautiously, watching as Darren shoves the magazines and DVDs to the side of the coffee table, making room for his mysterious box.

 

“I got a kit! Like a whole-” Darren waves one hand around while the other tries unsuccessfully to poke through the packing tape keeping the cardboard box closed. “Thing.”

 

Chris feels mortification, hot and prickling and heavy like a stone, sink through him to his toes. “Tell me you did not get a  _bondage_   _supply kit_ off the internet to use on me, Darren.”

 

Darren stops poking at the tape and frowns at the box. “I wasn’t gonna use all of it.” He looks up at Chris. “Just the cuffs. They’re lined with this faux fur stuff. So you know.” He gestures awkwardly. “Your wrists. So they don’t- didn’t, uh, chafe. Or whatever.”

 

Chris blinks, interested despite himself, and takes a step closer to Darren and the box. “Do you even know what else came with it?”

 

“I wasn’t really paying attention,” Darren admits, finally digging his keys out of his pocket to stab through the tape, ripping up the length of it with a sound that makes Chris wince. “Although I definitely remember the nipple clamps.”

 

“Oh my god.” Chris shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens his eyes again, Darren is pulling something long and thin from the box, and it takes a moment for his brain to register what it is. “Oh my _god_.”

 

“Rel _ax_ ,” Darren says, whipping the riding crop around a little before tucking it sharply under his arm like he’s some sort of British officer, and then continuing his search of the box. He shoves some stuff around, and Chris catches a glimpse of what he’s pretty sure are the nipple clamps Darren mentioned, and then a ball gag, before Darren pulls two sets of D-ringed cuffs from the box.

 

They’re  _gorgeous_ \- Chris can tell that from ten feet away - dark, supple-looking leather and shining silver metal. Darren drops the ankle cuffs on the couch and inspects the wrist ones, running his fingers across the plush inside surface. Looking up, he offers them to Chris wordlessly.

 

Taking a few cautious steps forward, Chris reaches tentatively for the cuffs and then backs off again, tuning Darren out when he begins once more to rummage through the box.

 

They’re strung together on a length of chain, and each one closes with a buckle, a small metal loop piercing through the belt hole and secured with a padlock. The leather is soft, smoother to the touch than the wide, rigid cuff he has on, and the lining on the inside is sinfully soft and silky. He’s pushing his fingers through it, reveling in the plush, luxurious feel of it, when he notices Darren watching him, an inscrutable look in his eye. Chris is about to say something probably a bit too cutting when he notices the nipple clamps hanging from the lobes of Darren’s ears.

 

“You’re such a child.”

 

“A  _naughty_  child,” Darren intones, wiggling his eyebrows.

 

“Go ahead and spank yourself, then, you’ve got the equipment for it.”

 

Unclipping the nipple clamps with a laugh, Darren shrugs and tosses them back into the box. “Not that into self-flagellation, but thanks.”

 

Brian takes that moment to jump onto the coffee table, tail swishing over the glossy magazine covers. “Hey, buddy,” Darren says, tickling his fingers over the top of Brian’s head. “Oh, hey, look. Got something for you.” Sticking his hand into the box once more, Darren pulls out a big, fluffy feather, sliding it out of a plastic sheath and then dangling it tantalizingly in front of Brian.

 

Chris spends a short but confusing moment wondering why a cat toy was included in a box of sex toys, and then he realizes that the feather _is_  a sex toy. Darren is using something meant for tickle-torturing helpless people’s  _balls_  as a cat toy.

 

“Seriously?” Chris asks, but doesn’t interfere. Brian seems to have it under control, and is standing on the feather, having stepped on it slowly and without looking away from Darren’s foolishly eager face. “If you don’t have food or a laser pointer he probably won’t be interested,” Chris informs Darren, moving to sit next to where Darren is standing by the couch, wiggling the feather under Brian’s paw.

 

Giving up with a sigh, Darren flops down beside Chris, tugging the crop from beneath his arm and holding it between his legs, twirling it through the air absently. “So.”

 

“So,” Chris echoes carefully, setting the cuffs down on the cushion between them.

 

“Can I ask why the change of heart?”

 

Change of  _mind_ , Chris thinks to himself, this has nothing to do with my heart. He isn’t foolish enough to say that out loud, however, because even in his head it sounds like he’s trying too hard. He finds himself shrugging, instead. “I panicked, I think.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Chris swallows and looks at the coffee table. Brian is peering into the box, front paws on the edge of it and head disappearing below the flaps.

 

“Did you want- I mean, you can always change your mind, you know,” Darren says. One of his hands rests between them on the couch, his fingers playing absently with the D ring on one of the cuffs. “No pressure, obviously, just-”

 

Brian slips, the slick magazines sliding over each other beneath his back paws, and scrabbles wildly, managing to pull the box over onto its side, spilling the contents onto the coffee table. Chris sees a collar and a neatly bundled length of rope. Brian bats at the elastic of a flimsy black blindfold.

 

Darren is still fiddling with the cuffs in between them, fingers brushing over leather and metal, stroking down to fan across the plush lining.

 

Taking a deep breath, Chris turns to Darren. “Let’s do it.”

 

 

***

 

 

Darren can’t settle into his feet on the walk up to Chris’s bedroom. He isn’t holding anything except a set of wrist cuffs, but it feels like what he’s carrying is a lot more precious than that, and he’s all of a sudden nervous. Chris sits down delicately on the very edge of his bed, hands twisted together in his lap, and Darren pauses in the doorway.

 

Darren snaps his fingers. “Safe word!”

 

“What?”

 

“You should have a safe word.” Darren points at the ceiling and then tucks his finger away and drops his handwhen Chris eyes it, unimpressed. “That’s totally a thing. To let me know if you need to stop.”

 

Chris looks at him, eyebrows quirked towards each other. “Can’t I just say, ‘Darren, uncuff me’ if I want to stop?”

 

Deflating a little, Darren takes a step inside the room. “I guess.”

 

Chris nods.

 

“That’s totally boring, though,” Darren murmurs, nudging the tip of his toe against the carpet.

 

“Fine then,” Chris sighs, leaning forward to snag the cuffs out of his hands. “Hotdog.”

 

“What?” Darren finds himself blushing.

 

“That’s my safe word,” Chris declares, scooting back a little farther on the bed. “Take it or leave it.”

 

“ _Ass_ hole,” Darren says, not bothering to hide the respect in his tone. “Okay, so, hotdog. Got it.” He watches for a moment as Chris fiddles with the cuffs, which are still locked up tight. “So what do you want to do, while you’re-” He waves a hand towards Chris. “You know.”

 

There’s a distinctive wariness in Chris’s voice when he looks up slowly, fingers stilling. “What do you mean?”

 

Scratching the back of his neck, Darren shrugs. “Um, did you, did you want to watch a movie or something? Put on music?”

 

“Not… not really. I like it quiet. Is that- You don’t have to stay in here, I mean, you can watch TV downstairs if you want, but I kind of like- I like it quiet.”

 

“Okay.” Darren nods, feeling inexplicably like a chump, like he should have known that. “So you do just wanna… start?”

 

Taking a deep breath, Chris nods, handing the cuffs back to Darren. The chain that connects them clinks brightly, loud now that Darren realizes there’s no background noise in the house besides the low, barely there hum of the heating. He digs the small key out of his pocket, glancing up to watch Chris take the cuff he’s already wearing off and then scoot up the mattress. The little silver padlocks both fit easily in the palm of his hand once he unlocks and removes them, and Darren stares at them dumbly for a moment, before looking up to see Chris stretched out long on the bed, hands above his head and arms resting on a pillow.

 

He doesn’t know exactly when all the moisture vacated his mouth, but the absence certainly does make swallowing difficult. “Laying down, then?” Darren asks in a scratched-dry voice, immediately closing his eyes at his own nervous idiocy. Chris doesn’t call him on it, simply nodding silently once Darren opens his eyes and flexing his fingers. “Right.” Darren licks his lips. “ _Right_.”

 

The bed gives a soft creak when Darren climbs halfway on, putting his weight on one knee. “Okay, which one first?”

 

Chris holds out his left arm, and Darren absently notes the warmth of his skin and the way goosebumps sweep across it once Darren pulls the buckle tight, sliding the padlock through the small loop and clicking it closed. He doesn’t let go, even though he’s aware that Chris is perfectly capable of maneuvering his own limbs. Instead, he carefully lays Chris’s arm back down on the pillow, threading the chain behind a couple bars of the headboard before reaching for Chris’s other wrist. He has to move farther up the bed to reach, since he can’t pull Chris’s right arm down as far, and when he looks down to check Chris’s position, he’s met with a pair of wide, careful blue eyes. “This,” Darren starts, fingers sliding down Chris’s arm slightly. “This is okay, right? I’m doing it right?”

 

Chris nods without saying anything, looking back up to where Darren’s fingers are barely brushing Chris’s forearm.

 

“Okay. Second one, right.” He recalls what Chris said earlier, about liking the quiet. “I’ll just, I’ll stop talking.”

 

The small huff of laughter Chris lets out when Darren says it puts him a little more at ease, and he hardly fumbles at all as he does up the other cuff, pulling the leather snug and snapping the padlock closed.

 

“Excellent, okay.” Darren leans back and sets his hands on his thighs for a split second before leaning back in and adjusting the pillow under Chris’s arms. “Okay. Even more… excellent. Good.”

 

“Darren.”

 

He doesn’t actually look at Chris, preferring instead to clear his throat and smooth out a wrinkle in the bed cover. “Yeah?”

 

“It’s okay.”

 

Darren looks up, then, taking in the relaxed set of Chris’s shoulders and the small smile on his face. “Holy shit it worked.”

 

Chris rolls his eyes and looks straight up at the ceiling. “You can go, now, downstairs or wherever. I’ll call if I need you.”

 

“I’m not- Dude, I can’t leave you here. That’s totally against the rules.” Darren looks down at Chris, absently noticing the way his t-shirt is twisted around his torso, one side of the collar digging in a little at his neck. “What if your nose itches?”

 

Chris’s eyes roll again, even harder this time. “What  _rules_?”

 

“Like, just, The Rules. It’s like leaving a dog in the car with the windows rolled up. You don’t do it.” Taking a deep breath, Darren notes the glare Chris is sending his way. “I can’t just leave you here by yourself, man.” Chris’s neck tenses, tendon flexing against the tightly stretched collar. “Can I fix your shirt?”

 

Blinking, Chris closes his open mouth and then opens it again. “What?”

 

Darren gestures at the plain t-shirt. “It’s all twisty. Do you want me to fix it? Here,” he mutters, getting closer and patting Chris on the side. “Lift up a little.”

 

Chris does, after a beat, plants his feet and arches his back off the mattress so Darren can correct the soft fall of the material over his torso with a few sharp tugs.

 

“There you go.” He settles back and waits for Chris to look at him before saying firmly, “I’m not leaving you alone.”

 

Shifting a little and rolling his shoulders, Chris knocks his knee into Darren’s back and then stretches his legs back out. “ _Fine_ , but stop looking at me.”

 

“I can’t look at you?” Darren asks, confused.

 

“No. And get off my bed.”

 

“Harsh.” Darren slides sullenly off the bed and looks around for a second. The only other official sit on-able thing in the room is an office chair tucked halfway under the desk that sits opposite the bed. “Can I play on your c-”

 

“No.” Chris pauses to take a deep breath and sigh it out. “Just read a book or something, if you have to be here, okay? I don’t, I can’t help you with anything when I’m like this. You’re making me nervous. I need you to be okay before I can- Just… I need you to be okay.”

 

“I’m okay,” Darren says, hopefully reassuringly. He spins the chair around and is about to sit down when Brian saunters in from the hallway. “You need anything?” he asks, watching Brian slink up to the bed. “Before we, uh, get into our grooves?”

 

Shaking his head, Chris closes his eyes and tugs a little with his wrists, pulling the chain tight. “No, I’m good.”

 

Darren nods and plops down, wincing at the slow, protracted sound of air leaking out of the cushion. Normally he’d make a comment, turn it into a joke, but he gets the feeling that anything he says now would just be air pollution.

 

Spinning absently, Darren slumps his head to the side and looks around the room, smiling as the cat readies himself to jump onto the mattress. Brian crouches, wiggling his hind end liberally, and then leaps, his considerable weight making a satisfying yet unstealthy  _flump_  sound as he lands next to Chris.

 

Unwilling to let Chris catch him looking, Darren quickly spins back around, facing the desk. His eyes fall on a pristine hardback, lying next to the closed laptop and looking like it’s never been touched. He picks it up and runs his fingers over the cover.

 

“Can I read this?” Darren asks, opening his mouth before he remembers he told himself he shouldn’t.  

 

Chris looks up and squints, and Darren wiggles  _The Land of Stories_.

 

He’s been meaning to read it. He bought a copy when it first came out, but couldn’t find the time until he’d been out of town, but of course he’d forgotten it. He tracked down another copy, but by then he was too busy again, so now he’s got two copies and still no idea what the book is like.

 

“If you want?” Chris says.

 

“I want!” Darren cracks the book open happily, unfolding the map. He’s looking over it, kind of stupidly taken with a tiny little inn that’s shaped like a boot, when he hears a muted  _oomph_  and looks up to see Brian wriggling down onto Chris’s chest, paws kneading and butt giving a small, satisfied wiggle as he sinks down on his haunches.

 

Darren watches with a smile on his face, waiting for Chris to ask for some help, or, more likely, simply roll over and take care of it himself. He doesn’t move, though, just stares at Brian. The cat kneads his chest slowly and stares back.

 

It takes a few moments for Darren to work up the initiative to break the tentative quiet. “Chris?”

 

“I can’t do this,” Chris says it like a confession, and while a minute ago his voice was perfectly normal, now it sounds absolutely wrecked.

 

On his feet before he realizes it, Darren sets the book down. “What do you mean? I can move him if you want, it’s no big deal.”

 

“No! Don’t move him. I- I  _like_  him there, I just can’t-” Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Chris starts over, his voice a little smaller. “I can’t pet him.” He shakes his head. “And I just can’t- I can’t  _do_  this.”

 

Swallowing and sitting gingerly on the very edge of the mattress, Darren strokes his hand along Brian’s back and down the length of his tail when he pushes up into the touch. “Alone.”

 

“What?”

 

“You can’t do this  _alone_. Isn’t that, like, the point? That you have to  _let_ other people help you now?”

 

Brian’s whole body shudders with the next breath Chris takes, and Darren scrubs a hand down his back again. He averts his eyes when Chris opens his and they’re wet. After a brief pause in which Brian starts purring, Darren looks back and asks curiously, “You seriously don’t mind this giant cat crushing your diaphragm?”

 

Chris laughs, a small, wet sound. “I like it. The weight. Holds me down better.”

 

Looking contemplatively at the fat, purring feline, Darren makes a decision. He stands, patting Chris on the chest as he does, and goes back to the desk, picking up the book and dragging the chair next to the bed. He sits and looks to Chris for permission as he raises his legs, settling them cautiously over Chris’s. His calves rest solidly across Chris’s thighs. “Is this okay? I mean, does it help?”

 

Chris looks like he’s having trouble processing things. “I… Yeah, it’s-” Brian interrupts with a plaintive meow, looking over at Darren, and all three of them let out strangely similar sounding snorts. Darren thinks maybe Brian’s was a sneeze, but he’s still looking balefully at Darren, as though wondering why he isn’t being petted yet.

 

Darren bends his legs, digging his heels into the mattress and grabbing the edge of it with a hand, rolling the chair closer to bed so he can reach Brian easily. He readjusts his legs, covering more of Chris’s now that he’s no longer perpendicular to them.

 

“Still good?” he asks Chris, opening the book in his lap and rubbing a knuckle under Brian’s chin.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“’Kay. Let me know if you need anything. I’ll stop looking at you now, I promise.”

 

“Okay,” Chris says, and Darren doesn’t even need to look to know that he’s smiling.

 

A few minutes later, when Darren is falling in love with a pair of twins and trying not to laugh out loud and disturb the comfortable quiet, he hears it. It’s not loud, or even all that noticeable, but it tugs at the edges of Darren’s attention until he looks up to find Chris asleep with his mouth open, breathing heavy and deep and halfway to a soft snore.

 

His cheek is resting against one of his strung-up arms, face relaxed and soft, and Darren knows he can’t let him stay like that for as long as he needs to rest, that it’s not good for his shoulders or his circulation, but he can let him have it for a little while. He’ll wake Chris up soon enough, softly, so he doesn’t startle, and then maybe help massage some of the feeling back into his arm, warm up his hands.

 

Looking at Brian, who has stopped purring and is blinking sleepily at his surroundings when he bothers opening his eyes, Darren smiles and strokes down his back. Leaning back in the chair, Darren crosses his ankles over Chris’s shins and goes back to the book, the soft susurration of turning pages occasionally joining in with Chris’s deep, even breathing.

 

 

 

***

 

 

 

Chris feels good. He might be feeling some tension creeping back in across his shoulders, coiling around the top of his spine, and he’s a little bit tired almost all the time, but that’s to be expected with the constant low-grade stress that is his life. That afternoon with Darren had been pretty much exactly what he’d needed, and he can feel it in his bones. He can feel other things in his bones, too, like a yearning for  _again_  and _more_ , but he’s gotten pretty good at ignoring it.

 

He’s at home, shaking some fish food into the tank and watching Brian carefully track the movements of Herman, the bright blue Betta fish, when his phone buzzes in his pocket.

 

_Hey, you busy?_

 

Chris reads through the text a few times, and then looks around at his reasonably tidy house, his laptop on the coffee table, open and ready for him to buckle down and power through chapter seventeen.

 

He types out a quick  _nope_  and sends it, looking guiltily at Brian, who is clearly judging him. “What?”

 

His phone starts to ring and he answers it the second he sees Darren’s face flash across the screen. “Hey, what’s up?”

 

“ _Nothing much_ ,” Darren answers, his voice staticky and accompanied by a tinny echo. “ _Just kind of… restless, I guess_.”

 

Chris stares unseeingly at Brian and waits a beat, wondering if Darren is going to specify how this restlessness is different from his normal complete inability to hold still for ten minutes at a time. Sure enough, his voice soon crackles back over the connection.

 

“ _So I was wondering if you were maybe up for doing the whole, uh, thing. Again. You know_.”

 

“Really? I mean, yeah, of course.” Chris resists the urge to take the phone from his ear and stare at it disbelievingly. “That would be great, if you want to.”

 

“ _I do_ ,” Darren immediately reassures him. “ _I could use some time to turn my brain off, you know_.”

 

Smiling a little, Chris sits down on the couch and leans his head back, watching the ceiling. “I don’t know exactly what you’re implying about my company, but I’ve got the evening free if you’re really up for it.”

 

“ _You’re perfectly stimulating company, don’t worry about that_ ,” Darren says. It’s the sort of thing he says to everyone, usually accompanied by an eyebrow waggle and maybe a subtle hand gesture, but Chris can’t actually detect any flirtiness in his tone, just a soft matter-of-fact conviction.

 

“As long as that’s clear,” Chris ends up saying, stroking Brian absently when he hops into Chris’s lap. “Whenever you wanna head over, just let me know.”

 

Darren’s voice is noticeably more relaxed when it next pipes into Chris’s ear. “ _Cool_ ,” he says. “ _This is me letting you know._ ”

 

Chris smiles, and then Darren speaks again, just as the glare of headlights sweeps across his living room, piercing the half-closed curtains. “ _And this is me pulling into your driveway_.”

 

“Dork,” Chris declares, nudging Brian off his lap so he can go unlock the door.

 

Once Darren is inside, illuminated by the glow of the living room light, it’s obvious he could use some downtime. Chris takes in the faint bruises smudged under Darren’s eyes. “You sure you’re up for this?”

 

“I’m up for anything,” Darren tells him. He smiles as he says it, but doesn’t quite grin, and that’s probably what worries Chris the most.

 

*

 

Darren is quicker this time, buckling Chris’s wrists in with more confidence but no less care. Before Chris knows it, he’s got his arms bound and his pillow fluffed, and Darren is slumped next to the bed in Chris’s desk chair, spinning idly. He glances up and catches Chris’s scrutiny, raising his eyebrows.

 

“You need anything? Oh! You want me to do the leg thing again? I could go get Brian.”

 

“You look like you’re about to fall over,” Chris says, ignoring Darren’s babble.

 

Darren sniffs and sits up straighter, rubbing at one of his eyes. “I’m fine.”

 

Rolling his eyes, Chris stretches a foot out and pushes at the chair, rolling Darren a few inches farther away. “Don’t be dumb. You can lie down if you want, is what I was getting at.”

 

“I’ll fall asleep,” Darren says softly scooting forward until he’s on the edge of the chair. “And  _you’ll_  fall asleep.” He yawns, patting Chris’s shin. “And then your hands will turn blue and fall off and it will be all my fault.” Eyeing the stretch of mattress beside Chris wistfully, Darren shakes his head. “It’s for the best.”

 

“ _Or_ ,” Chris says, once Darren has stopped speaking. “We could set an alarm just in case and take a nice relaxing nap.”

 

“Or,” Darren says after the idea sinks in. “I like or.”

 

Scooting over as well as he can, Chris gestures awkwardly at the bed with his head. “C’mon.”

 

There’s a long moment wherein Chris wonders if he’s actually going to have to wheedle Darren into sleeping in his bed, before something changes in Darren’s demeanor. A slip in his posture, the release of something holding him still, and he’s out of the chair in a heartbeat, crawling up beside Chris and dropping down with a sigh. “Soft,” he observes, wiggling until he’s on his side facing Chris.

 

“Good?”

 

Darren grins. “Yup.” He brings his arm up, as though presenting it to Chris for observation, and then says, “If this isn’t okay just tell me I’m an asshole.”

 

The arm he presented settles gently across Chris’s chest, and another weight, heavier and more substantial, falls across his thighs.

 

“It’s…” Chris flexes his toes and draws his shoulders up a little, taking stock of the sensation. “Fine,” he says eventually, surprising himself. It feels heavy. Safe. “Huh.” Chris blinks at the ceiling, relaxing his shoulders. “Yeah, it’s fine.”

 

“’Kay, hang on.”

 

Darren’s arm disappears from Chris’s chest and his leg presses down harder for a moment. “Just gonna,” Darren says quietly, the glow of a phone screen emanating from somewhere below Chris’s line of sight. “There.” A phone is tossed over Chris, bouncing on the other side of him. “Thirty minutes.”

 

“Thirty minutes.” Chris nods.

 

“Mmm,” Darren agrees. He settles down by Chris’s side again, limbs once more draped loosely over him.

 

Roughly twenty seconds later Darren lets out a sigh. “Okay, so, what if I… like, would it be weird if I laid, um,  _on_  you?” Darren asks, his voice careful. “Like all the way?”

 

The suggestion shocks Chris’s pulse into overdrive. The intimacy of the very idea is terrifying. He swallows once, to calm himself, and then cranes his neck down to try and gauge the look on Darren’s face.

 

He looks… like he always looks. Earnest and sweet and a little bit like a six-year-old. “Is that too weird? You said you like being held down.”

 

Chris licks his lips, trying to shape the suggestion into something that actually makes sense. “Like… how?”

 

“Just,  _on_ \- like,” Darren sighs, fidgeting against Chris’s side. “Can I show you?”

 

He wouldn’t have said yes a week ago. He probably wouldn’t have said yes ten minutes ago. Chris realizes Darren most likely doesn’t know what it would mean to him. Do to him. “I guess.”

 

“Okay,” Darren murmurs, pushing up to his knees and then leaning over Chris. “You sure?”

 

“No.”

 

“Oh.”

 

Chris rolls his eyes. “Hurry up.”

 

 Darren laughs softly, gives a small, tentative smile, and then lowers himself down.

 

Chris doesn’t really navigate this all that well yet, the subtle play of weight and restraint and trust; his short time spent with Ricky and Carlos was more of a crash course than an extensive study. His skin, though, his skin knows the language, flushing hot at the settle of Darren’s weight. The hairs on his arms stand up, the first in a prickling wave of sensation that rolls across the rest of him, and it’s only the sharp clink of the chain against his headboard that pulls Chris up enough to realize Darren is saying something to him.

 

“Okay?” Darren asks.

 

Chris grunts his assent, the air leaving his lungs in a rush, helped along by Darren’s chest against his own.

 

It’s… It’s really fucking good, the feeling of being weighted down, pressed and held. He feels the telltale burn of the beginnings of tears in the corners of his eyes and slams them shut, clenching his jaw.

 

“Chris?”

 

“Don’t look at me,” Chris says through gritted teeth, tacking on an embarrassed, “Again.” The soft whuff of laughter against his shoulder makes him feel a little better, though.

 

“This is so stupid,” Chris mutters, when it becomes clear that the knot in his chest is going to remain tightly wound. “I don’t even cry. I was never a crier. You’re supposed to grow out of crying and I grew into it.”

 

“You grew into a lot of things, though, like your hair and your face and your shoulders,” Darren points out. “Not your feet, though. Those are still kind of floppy.”

 

Chris wheezes out what he can of a laugh and turns his head to look at Darren’s ear, which is really the only thing he can see right now that isn’t hair. “Rude.”

 

“I’m just saying,” Darren mumbles, shifting a little. “Maybe growing into crying is like, the universe balancing things out.”

 

Chris does his best to shrug, feeling the strain in his shoulders.

 

“Or maybe you’re just opening up previously closed emotional pathways, and the increasing frequency of you crying is directly proportional to the amount of things you actually let yourself feel.”

 

Chris blinks at Darren’s ear, and the prickle of tears that had been receding makes itself known once again. Chris barely keeps from sighing at himself. “The only thing I feel right now are your bony ass knees, Dr. Phil.”

 

Snorting, Darren wiggles. “I am not the bony one in this scenario, mister dagger hips.”

 

“So I’m not a terribly comfortable mattress, is what you’re saying?”

 

“No. No, I wouldn’t say that,” Darren says after a beat, rolling and scooting over, pulling one knee up and resting an arm across Chris’s chest to lay his head on. “Can you breathe?”

 

Chris nods. It’s an effort, of course, to breathe, more of an effort than before, with Darren’s forearm across his sternum and the top of Darren’s bare foot sliding along the inside of his knee. But it’s nice. It’s pressure and a firm weight against his ribs, against the mattress. “It’s good.”

 

Darren lets out a contented hum and settles more surely against him, body relaxing palpably.  He’s warm and firm, and the soft brush of his hair tickles against Chris’s chin.

 

When he was little, young and already different, there was a blanket his family kept in the hall closet; a big, thick, blue blanket with black trim, fuzzy and dense and incredibly warm. No one ever used it because it was so heavy and hard to clean, and once you got under it, no matter how cold it was outside of the blanket, you’d end up flushed and hot. Sometimes, when things got hard and Chris couldn’t get his mind to settle down, he’d drag that blanket out of the closet and onto his bed, still folded up. After pushing himself under it, he would close his eyes, breathing deep. As his lungs filled up he would imagine being a ghost, or a feather, or a balloon, or something else the wind could pick up and carry off. Things would be okay then, because even though he was empty enough to float away, he had his heavy blue blanket to hold him down.

 

Darren isn’t made up of layers and layers of thick, fuzzy blue. Darren is made up soft skin and hard bones and shifting, restless muscles, of a living, breathing chest that swells and pushes against Chris’s own, and fingers that curl absently into the cotton of Chris’s shirt.

 

Chris closes his eyes, taking deliberate, not-quite-full breaths against the pressure on his lungs, and listens to the hum of the air conditioning, to the breath that rushes past their teeth and their lips. He feels the soft trace of Darren’s hair against his chin, and the way the edges of the cuffs dig gently into the heels of his palms, his slack arms suspended easily by leather and chain.

 

“How do you feel?” Darren murmurs, his voice spilling slow and gentle into the quiet.

 

“Like a balloon,” Chris says without thinking, and he doesn’t even mind when Darren laughs.

 

 

***

 

It’s been three weeks since he fell asleep on top of Chris. Three weeks since he startled awake on top of Chris to an alarm bleating in his ear, unbuckled the cuffs around Chris’s wrists, and then settled onto the bed next to him, eyes closed and breathing even, sleep coming easier than it ever has before.

 

They haven’t talked about it since.

 

They’ve talked about other things, of course. Trivial things and silly things and  _what do you think Blaine should do here_  sort of things. But neither of them has brought up the way they woke up late for work, sunlight streaming down onto their tangled up limbs and sleep-drunk headaches throbbing behind their eyes.

 

It’s been three weeks, so it’s kind of a surprise when he gets a text from Chris late on a Saturday evening.

 

_Hotdog_

 

Darren stares at the word for a good thirty seconds before tapping the screen and holding the phone up to his hear. Chris answers on the third ring.

 

“ _Hello_?”

 

“Are you okay?”

 

“ _I’m… Yeah. I’m in a cab_.”

 

“Where are you going?”

 

“ _I- I don’t know, I-_ ”

 

“Come here,” Darren says immediately, running a hand through his hair. “Just come here. We can talk, or, or whatever. Whatever you need, okay?”

 

“ _Yeah, yes. Darren_ -” Chris hesitates, the sounds of his breathing just as shaky as his words. “ _Thank you_.”

 

“Don’t even. Don’t even thank me. Just get here and we can-” Darren pauses to take a steadying breath. He doesn’t know. There’s no way to know what’s going on, what happened, and Chris certainly can’t tell him with a cab driver listening in. “We can figure it out. Okay?”

 

“ _’Kay_.”

 

Darren doesn’t wait outside, but it’s a close thing. He’s hovering by the front door, face glued to the peephole every few moments so he doesn’t miss anything, when Chris’s cab pulls up and he gets out, arms wrapped tightly around his middle.

 

“Huggin’ you,” Darren informs Chris as he opens the door. He gives him a moment to opt out, but when all he does is step all the way inside, Darren slings one arm around his neck and the other around his waist, pulling him close. Chris’s arms stay trapped between them, still curled around his stomach, but he drops his face into Darren’s neck and leaves it there, breathing steadily against Darren’s skin.

 

Eventually, Chris’s arms fall down to his sides, and Darren allows his to do the same, stepping back reluctantly as Chris raises his head.

 

Bouncing on his toes, Darren searches his brain for a safe question to ask and ends up on, “You want a grilled cheese?”

 

“Um-”

 

Darren claps a hand on Chris’s upper arm and then drags his down, fingers skating over the stiff leather of Chris’s cuff, until he can grab Chris’s hand, tugging him toward the kitchen. “Grilled cheese, c’mon.”

 

Darren turns the burner on and directs Chris towards one of the stools around the island. “Sit, talk. If you want.”

 

Apparently Chris  _doesn’t_  want. After a few protracted moments of silence from Chris, Darren starts talking as he bangs pans around and shoves things to the side in the fridge, looking for likely ingredients. He doesn’t say anything important, just rambles about how his dad used to make him and his brother a grilled cheese after school sometimes, to tide them over until dinner, and how Chuck prefers white cheese but he doesn’t actually care what kind, as long as it isn’t orange.  

 

When he sets a plate down in front of Chris, topped with a perfect grilled cheese, golden crispy on the outside with gooey cheddar spilling out from the middle, Chris is staring at the countertop and rubbing the fingers of his right hand around his left wrist. His naked left wrist.

 

The cuff sits abandoned on the far side of the island.

 

“Chris?”

 

“Nothing happened,” Chris says, dropping his wrist to pick up the grilled cheese. He takes a bite and then shoves it into his cheek, gesturing widely with the sandwich. “Like,  _nothing_. It was- I mean, even when he touched it. He just asked about it, joking, and I freaked out and left him there with his pants around his ankles. He wouldn’t even have cared, I bet.” Chris swallows and tears another bite out of the sandwich viciously, chewing with vigor as he glares at his plate.

 

Darren processes that, sliding into the stool next to Chris. He’s… glad. Not that Chris ran away, he supposes, but that nothing happened, nothing bad and nothing, nothing too… too intimate, that he’s happy about. There’s a shock of recognition as he comes to understand that the heat in his stomach and the clench in his jaw is possessiveness, that he feels as though this thing with Chris, the buckles and restraints and the way Chris feels underneath him is meant for them and them alone.

 

He’s  _pleased_  that Chris left that guy, and even more pleased that Chris came to him. To Darren. That feels, somehow, huge, like a boon.

 

“Now he’ll definitely know it’s a thing,” Chris says forlornly. “I wouldn’t have freaked out if it wasn’t a thing.”

 

“You think he’s gonna be an asshole about it?” Darren questions, frowning.

 

“ _No_ ,” Chris wails, dropping the half-eaten grilled cheese onto the plate and pushing it away before thunking his head against the counter. “He’ll probably be super cool about it because he’s a really great guy,” Chris moans, voice sounding echoey and muffled at the same time, resounding against the tile of the countertop. “He’ll probably pretend like he believes me when I say I thought I left the stove on or something. He’ll probably never bring it up again and not be awkward at all the next time we see each other. He’s  _chill_ , Darren.  _Ugh_!”

 

A chiming noise sounds and Chris jerks and yelps, knees smacking up against the bottom of the counter as he swears and stuffs a hand in his pocket, digging around until he yanks out his phone.

 

“It’s him!” Chris cries, staring in horror at his phone.

 

Darren rolls his eyes, knocking one of his socked feet into Chris’s shoes. “Let it go to voicemail.”

 

“I don’t want him to think I’m ignoring him!”

 

“Oh for-” Darren wrestles Chris’s phone away from him and answers it, batting Chris’s hands away and saying in a calm, pleasant voice, “Hello, Chris Colfer’s phone.”

 

“ _Ah, hey. Hello. This is Scott._ ”

 

Scott has a pleasant voice, a little deeper than Darren’s, smooth and clear. “Hello Scott,” Darren smiles, infusing his voice with a chipperness he doesn’t quite feel as Chris drops his head to the counter again. “I’m afraid Chris is busy at the moment, is there something I can help you with?”

 

“ _I just wanted to make sure Chris got home okay, and… And I wanted to apologize if I did something to offend him?_ ”

 

Damn. Darren feels himself scowling for no particular reason. He pastes the smile back into his voice and answers, “He got home just fine. Left the oven on, but thankfully there was nothing in it.”

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

“Was that all?”

 

“ _No. Yeah, I mean. That’s it. Just, if you could tell him I called? And that he can call me back whenever, if he wants. No rush._ ”

 

“I’ll be sure to do that.”

 

“ _Thank you_.”

 

“Good bye.”

 

“… _Bye_.”

 

The line goes dead and the phone goes dark. “Well?” Chris asks miserably.

 

Sighing, Darren sets the phone next to Chris’s head on the countertop. It really does pain him to admit it, for reasons he doesn’t wish to think about. “He was really chill, dude.”

 

Chris’s shoulders slump and he lifts his head an inch or two just to drop it back down, hitting the counter with a thud.

 

“Hey, not cool.” Darren winces, tugging on Chris’s shoulders until he’s sitting more or less upright. “You’re gonna… break my kitchen if you keep that up.”

 

“Screw your kitchen,” Chris says in a dull voice. He grabs what’s left of the sandwich and stuffs most of it in his mouth, shoulders still slumped over pitifully.

 

“Come on, man.” He nudges Chris’s bowed shoulder.

 

Chewing joylessly, Chris continues to stare blankly at the countertop.

 

“Okay.” Darren makes a decision, standing up and grabbing Chris’s elbow, pulling him off the stool. “Come on. No more wallowing. Let’s do something.”

 

“Li’ wha’?” Chris lets himself be dragged through the kitchen and into the living room.

 

“I don’t know. You wanna watch a movie? You want me to tie you up? We could do both?”

 

Chris is quiet beside him for a long moment before Darren hears him swallow thickly. “All the stuff’s at my place.”

 

Thinking quickly, Darren ignores the sudden images of Chris, tied up on Darren’s with the soft, black rope from the kit, elaborate knots binding pale skin. “I’ve got that kit. There are ropes and silk scarves and stuff.”

 

“And nipple clamps.”

 

Smiling, Darren nods and glances over. “And nipple clamps. Thinking about expanding your horizons?” Darren certainly is.

 

“Not… in the nipple clamp direction, no.”

 

“Hm.”

 

“I could maybe work with the silk?”

 

 

***

 

 

Chris isn’t sure what he was expecting, but the sheer delicate intimacy of Darren tying the silk around his wrists was not it. Somehow more personal than the cuffs, it also seems more fragile, the fabric around his wrists carrying none of the weighted security of the cuffs to which he’s become accustomed.

 

It’s also strange doing it in someone else’s bed.

 

“Too tight?” Darren asks from his spot crouched above Chris, fingers pressing warmly into his wrist. The bedside lamp casts him in a soft, orange glow, and his eyes look darker than usual.

 

Shaking his head, Chris looks away and trains his eyes on the black silk, yanking a little. His arms are spread farther apart than he’s used to, tied directly to two posts instead of chained together.

 

“So.” Leaning back, Darren settles on his knees and looks at his handiwork before catching Chris’s gaze. “How’s it feel?”

 

“Different,” Chris says honestly, twisting his wrists, wrapping them up in the silk and pulling his arms higher.

 

“Good different, bad different?”

 

“It’s not-” Chris breaks off with a huff and pulls himself up, feet against the mattress, wrists caught by the silk, the rest of him arching off the bed and then flopping back down. “Heavy enough.” He drags his feet closer to him on the mattress, knees pointing towards the ceiling.

 

“What about me?” Darren asks, shuffling over and then slinging a leg across Chris’s middle before Chris can protest. He sinks down onto Chris, ass fitting against the curve where Chris’s thighs start to angle up, knees snug against Chris’s ribs. “’M I heavy enough?”

 

“Um,” Chris says stupidly. Darren is looking down at him, head cocked and expression innocuously curious. “Heavy.” Chris echoes. Darren’s palms rest on his stomach, his legs flex around Chris as he shifts minutely. “’S good. You’re… good.” It sounds almost like a question, the way his voice turns up at the end, but Chris can’t really care, since thinking about anything beyond Darren’s ass resting against his cock is beyond him at the moment. The muscles in Chris’s stomach shiver, and his body wants to curl up tight, wants to grind against Darren, wants to _flee_. In the end he doesn’t move, just stares at the way Darren’s thighs spread, the way they fit around Chris’s body.

 

It takes a few moments of a steady, fraught stare from Chris, but something finally seems to click in Darren’s brain and his eyes snap open wide. The weight on Chris lessens as Darren pushes back up on his knees. “Shit, you want me to get off? This- ha, wow. Anyway. I could- do the laying thing, or, I mean… I have books. Heavy books. We could pile you with books.”

 

Chris gives a weak laugh and straightens one of his legs out. It’s about the only thing he can really move.

 

Blushing, Darren lifts a knee and slides awkwardly off of Chris, landing beside him on the mattress and staying there. “Books are probably way less dumb than I am.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Chris blurts out.

 

“What?” Darren looks genuinely confused. “For what?”

 

“You definitely didn’t sign up for this.”

 

Darren goes still beside him, blinking.

 

Chris closes his eyes and waits until he’s facing the ceiling before opening them. He tests the give of the silk, straining his arms against the ties.

 

Eventually, Darren breaks the silence.

 

“Um, wrong.”

 

Chris turns his head, frowning, to look at Darren.

 

“Dude,” Darren says, frowning back.

 

“What?”

 

“Did you fail to notice how I’ve initiated every one of our little sessions?”

 

“Only ‘cause you’re being nice.”

 

“So? It’s not like that’s some underhanded, deceitful thing I do to throw you off the trail. I like doing things for you. I like that doing  _this_  for you helps me settle my brain down. This isn’t a hardship, dumbass, and even if it were I’d still be signing up for it. That’s what friends do. That’s like, one of the definitions, I’m pretty sure.”

 

Chris stares.

 

“And anyway, it’s not like you wouldn’t help me out if I, you know. Had a… thing.”

 

Chris blanches a little, mind wandering, and then can’t help but shudder as he shakes his head. “No way I’m dealing with dick mustard for you. Sorry.”

 

“Oh my god.” Darren shoves lightly at his shoulder before stretching out next to him on his back. “You just had to go there.”

 

“Sometimes I go there accidentally when I don’t mean to,” Chris says, affecting another shudder. “It’s a dark place.”

 

Sighing heavily, Darren shoves his hands under his head, ‘accidentally,’ knocking an elbow into the soft underside of Chris’s upper arm as he does. “See if I ever tell you embarrassing sexual escapade stories again.”

 

“There are  _more_?”

 

“I will tickle you. I will tickle the shit out of you.”

 

The bed squeaks as Chris squirms, the idea making his stomach flutter bizarrely. “Better not.”

 

Grinning, Darren rolls over, tucking both hands under his cheek. “Or what? You’ll wiggle at me?”

 

“Wiggle my foot up your ass,” Chris grumbles, pointedly not looking at Darren.

 

“Oooh,” Darren laughs, propping himself up on an elbow. “As terrifying and, um, vaguely fetishistic as that sounds, I think I’ll have to pass. Your feet are huge.”

 

“Your loss.” Crossing a leg over his bent knee, Chris rolls his ankle and flexes his socked foot in the most menacing way he can manage.

 

Darren snorts and kicks at it until Chris’s leg slides back down to the bed, landing with a small bounce. They’re quiet for a moment, and then Darren scoots close, sliding an arm across Chris’s stomach and draping a leg over Chris’s thighs. “Okay?”

 

Chris nods without looking at him, throat suddenly thick with something he can’t quite figure out.

 

Darren moves closer, limbs tightening around Chris as he curls forward slightly and rests his head at Chris’s shoulder, letting out a sigh that spills hot breath against Chris’s throat. “This is nice.”

 

“Yeah.” Chris’s voice is dangerously rough. He keeps going anyway. “Thank you, for doing it. This. For me.”

 

Giving a little shimmy, Darren pecks a little kiss on Chris’s shoulder, rubbing his cheek over the spot before sighing happily again. “No problem.”

 

Eyes closing as he takes a breath, Chris tries to find the peace that normally settles over him when he’s held down. His shoulder feels hot where Darren kissed it, where his cheek is pressed now. The feeling of Darren’s ass, round and perfectly fitted against the cradle that his hips had made, comes unbidden to Chris’s mind. He stifles an embarrassed groan but remains helpless against the blush he can feel heating up his face.

 

Darren’s arm, the one slung low across Chris’s stomach, sweeps up slowly, until his palm is over Chris’s heart. Chris can feel his pulse thrumming, heavy and quick. He imagines Darren can feel it, too.

 

“Chris?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“You okay?”

 

“Maybe.”

 

Darren leans up, hand pressing down harder as the warmth of his cheek disappears. Chris sucks in a breath.

 

“Scott was really, really nice,” Chris says in a small voice.

 

Darren quirks his eyebrows, a frown turning his lips down, but doesn’t move otherwise. “That’s… good, right? He’ll definitely want to try again?”

 

Shaking his head, Chris clears his throat. “I don’t want to.” He looks down, away from Darren’s concerned gaze. “He’s  _tall_ , and he doesn’t laugh the right way, and his hands are always cold.” The heat from Darren’s palm bleeds conspicuously through Chris’s shirt. Chris watches Darren’s fingers clench, curling up in the fabric of his t-shirt as he finishes in a guilty whisper. “I didn’t mean to worry you. I- I think I wouldn’t have freaked out so bad if I hadn’t already been looking for a reason to leave.”

 

“Hey.” Darren’s voice is soft and warm, with an almost imperceptible rumble to it. He slides his hand up until he’s cupping Chris’s jaw, and when Chris meets Darren’s eyes they’re sincere and golden in the lamplight. “It’s okay to worry me, and you never need a  _reason_  to leave. If he’s a nice guy he knows that.”

 

Smiling, Chris shifts his legs against the bed, stopping awkwardly when his thighs rub up against Darren’s. “I’ve never been pinned to the bed by an advice column before.”

 

“Oh fuck off, I was being supportive.” Darren rolls on top of him, then, resting his weight along the full length of Chris’s prone body.

 

“Hmm,” Chris murmurs noncommittally, looking to the side and resisting the urge to squirm.

 

Using the loose grip he has on Chris’s jaw, Darren tilts his face back until they’re looking at each other once more.

 

“It’s not working, is it? It’s different this time.”

 

He shrugs, tightening his hold the silk.

 

“ _Chris_ , come on. You gotta tell me what’s going on. Why isn’t it working?”

 

Letting go of Chris’s jaw, Darren reaches up, looking thoughtful. His fingers skim along the edges of the silk biting into Chris’s wrist. “Is it that it’s not the cuffs?”

 

Chris, focused intently on not reacting to the feel of Darren’s fingertips stroking at the tender insides of his wrists, shakes his head stiffly, unwilling to risk an attempt at speaking.

 

“Please, Chris, just talk to me.”

 

“I can’t,” Chris blurts, voice too loud and surprisingly even. He starts again, softer this time, but still rushed. “I can’t do it with- I just- I can’t let go and keep control at the same time, and you’re on top of me and you- you  _know_ , about me, and I- I let you, and  _fuck_ , Darren, I was _going to have sex tonight_.”

Chris can feel his eyes go wide, and he stares dumbly at Darren for a moment before snapping his mouth shut.

Darren looks at him, leaning up and studying Chris’s face. He seems dazed at first, but the shock wears from his features soon enough, replaced by a puzzled grin. “You’re totally turned on right now.”

“Ugh,” Chris huffs, worry draining away as he bucks his hips up and over. “Get off me you asshole.”

Darren laughs and rolls off, but he leaves an arm and a leg slung casually over Chris as he props himself up on his elbow, heedless of the twinge it encourages in Chris’s belly.

“That’s totally fine, you know.” Darren pats him amiably on the chest. “I guess I kind of, uh, disremembered the whole context of the bondage stuff, since you were so… asleep. Those other times. Also you completely ignored the nipple clamps. It threw me off.”

Wishing he could pinch the bridge of his nose to ward off the ache building behind his eyes, Chris settles on squeezing his fingers around the taut silk binding him to Darren’s headboard. “Is there a point to this?”

“It’s okay,” Darren says, something in his voice shifting from teasing to serious. “If doing this turns you on. That’s- it’s fine, really. And it’s okay if  _me_  doing this with you turns you on, because…” Darren trails off, clearing his throat.

Chris turns, searching Darren’s face. “…Because?”

“Because I was glad.” Voice no more than a whisper, Darren watches Chris closely, thumb stroking, slow and deliberate, along Chris’s ribs. “When you said you left that guy there and came to me. I was really glad. Like, jealous glad.”

Something in Chris’s chest twists tight.

“And then when you said you didn’t want to try again, with him. I was glad about that, too.”

Chris lets out a shaky breath.

“So,” Darren says, eyes luminous and gentle. “Whatever you want to do. I’ve thought about it, and whatever you want, however you want to do this. It’s fine.”

“Oh,” Chris says, and then promptly runs out of words.

Darren’s thumb continues to sweep over his side, a steady, fixed stroke that Chris feels like the ticking of a clock, until all at once it stops.

“Did you kiss him?” Darren asks quietly, fingertips pressing into the cage of Chris’s ribs, as though he’s anxious of the answer.

“Yes.” A beat. Chris takes in the subtle downward curve of Darren’s lips, the severity of the notch between his eyebrows. Wonderingly, he realizes, “You really are jealous.”

“I  _told_  you,” Darren mumbles, flexing the leg that rests across Chris’s with the emphasis of his words. He breaks eye contact, gaze drifting down to somewhere around Chris’s collarbone. He seems embarrassed, almost. Surly.

“You… If you want to, Darren-” Chris shuts his eyes and takes a calming breath. “If you really want to, then- then yeah.” He breaks off when he opens his eyes again, because Darren is hovering above him, gaze roaming greedily over Chris’s face, mouth the slightest bit open. Chris can see the shine of his teeth behind his lips, the flicker of his tongue. When they breathe in at the same time their chests brush, just barely. “Kiss me.” It’s not much of a demand. His voice is thready and disobedient, wavering when he means for it to be strong.

That doesn’t really matter, though, because as soon as the words leave his mouth Darren takes their place.

Despite the haste, Darren’s lips are gentle, warm as they press sweetly against him. The contact sends twists and shocks of pleasure singing through Chris, swooping low in his belly and tingling out through his toes. He unclenches his fists, tension bleeding from him as he lets his wrists hang loosely from the silk ties, and tilts his head, deepening the kiss.

Darren moans softly, leaning in and pulling back and pushing close again, hands restless over Chris’s chest as he moves to straddle Chris once more.

A shake builds in Chris’s chest, an aching sort of shiver, and when Darren pulls away to smile down at him, they’re both breathing heavily, but Chris can’t seem to work his diaphragm correctly. He whines and twists up, rolling his hips and lifting his chin, and Darren is on him again, mouth open this time, teeth scuffing boldly across Chris’s lower lip.

Chris can’t breathe right, can’t get enough of anything but especially Darren’s mouth and oxygen. Air saws in and out of his lungs, rough and ragged and painful, not quite enough and too much at the same time _._

“You sound like you can’t breathe,” Darren murmurs, pushing himself up with his arms, to where Chris can’t reach him.

“I  _feel_  like I can’t breathe.”

“Hmm,” Darren hums, sitting all the way up and fluttering his fingers across Chris’s heaving chest. “Breathe or no more kisses.”

“I didn’t agree to those terms,” Chris struggles to get out, his voice full of gravel and certainly too thick to pass as unaffected. He tries to breathe, tries to let himself go, but he can’t, he can’t. “I can’t. I need-”

Darren settles back down, chest to chest with Chris, kisses behind Chris’s ear and takes a slow, deep breath, a map for Chris’s lungs. “You’re okay,” he murmurs, rocking his weight down into Chris gently, in time with his breaths. “You’re okay.”

“This is-” Chris laughs wetly and swallows, riding out the slow drive of Darren against him, trying to get his diaphragm to cooperate. His cock is half hard, his limbs weak and shivering. “God, this is so embarrassing.”

Darren leans back to look at him, smiling crookedly, and gaze searching.

“But don’t stop,” Chris clarifies, wrapping his hands around the silk that tethers him to the headboard, irrationally fearful of Darren taking it away.

“Okay, but for the record, this is way less uncomfortable than a hotdog blowjob.” Warm palms press down at Chris’s shoulders, dragging down. “Trust me.”

“Yeah,” Chris says without thinking, pushing against the pressure of Darren’s hands, the admission coming easily.

 

***

“I trust you.”

 

Darren stares at Chris, blinking hard and marveling at the honesty in his face.

 

“Well,” he says, and clears his throat. His hands pause on their path down Chris’s chest, and Chris stays arched into them for a moment, before he drops back to the mattress. Darren follows him closely, moving one hand next to Chris’s chest and stroking the other down the back of Chris’s neck, tilting his head back slightly. Chris watches him through mostly-closed eyes, gaze heavy and expectant. “You’re okay?” Darren asks, leaning down to pepper kisses over Chris’s upturned chin.

 

“Mmhmm.”

 

They fit together better than Darren could have expected, and in an entirely different way than Kurt and Blaine. Here, Chris’s lips are softer, more giving, and Darren can press in close and tender, mouth open and eyes fluttering shut as he swipes his tongue along Chris’s lower lip.

His breath gusts over Chris’s mouth when he comes back up, saying, soft and panting and stupid, “I’m glad you can breathe.”

“Me too,” Chris says, voice sweet and high. He frowns, though, brow lowering and lips pouting out slightly as he jiggles his right arm. “But I can’t feel my hand.”

“Oh, shit.” Darren scrambles to his knees, fingers probing at the black silk digging into Chris’s wrists. “Yeah, they’ve gotten way tight. I’ll- I’m gonna hafta cut them, I think. They didn’t-” Darren leans over Chris to dig around in the drawer of the nightstand. “They didn’t seem that tight before.”

“I was…” Chris trails off, watching as Darren finally finds his tiny pair of red plastic scissors, the only thing left over from an emergency sewing kit he used to keep on hand for costume stuff in his college years. Darren turns back to him, trying to convey his interest while quickly working the fidgety little scissors through the bunched-up silk. Chris’s wrist twists nervously. “I was kind of pulling on them, I think, when- With the kissing.”

“Oh,” Darren says, the movement of his fingers slowing briefly before he starts back up again, finally slicing through the last layer. He can feel the blush on his face, and the stupid smile. Leaning back, he looks down Chris and can’t help but press a quick kiss to his lips before moving to his other hand. Chris kisses him back, but Darren doesn’t miss the way it seems more tentative than before, jittery and nervous now that he isn’t tied down.

Once he frees Chris’s other hand, Darren wants nothing more than to pick up where they left off, but the shifting, flighty tremors in Chris’s fingers convince him that pushing would be a bad idea.

He settles for settling down beside Chris, pulling the trembling hands into his lap one at a time and kneading them, careful and deep, until they’re warm and nimble again, flexing and curling in Darren’s grasp.

They don’t kiss anymore that night, aside from the fleeting brushes of Darren’s lips against Chris’s knuckles when he’s done with them. Instead, they watch a movie downstairs.

Darren waits for Chris to sit, leaning up against the armrest, before he flops down longways, resting his feet in Chris’s lap without looking over and grabbing the remote to turn the TV on. It’s nice, not quite comfortable, but the tension in the air is the best kind, thrumming with anticipation. He feels like he’s in high school again, grappling with first date jitters and never quite knowing what to do, even if he knows exactly what he wants. He’s grinning, utterly and inescapably aware of every involuntary flex of his toes in Chris’s lap, breathing too fast but incapable of regulating it, when Chris’s fingers rest, tentative and careful, on Darren’s ankle.

Darren hides his smile in the arm of the couch and digs his toes into Chris’s thigh.

Chris leaves a couple hours later, blinking sleepily as Darren hugs him close by the front door. The cab idles by the curb, and Darren sweeps his hands up Chris’s back, smiling as Chris squeezes him back uncertainly. Their arms slide together as Chris moves away, elbows to forearms to wrists, and then Darren is holding Chris’s hands, rubbing his thumbs over Chris’s knuckles as he grins at him. “Goodnight.”

Chris eyes him for a long moment, and then lets out a small, exasperated sigh. “ _God_ , you’re so weird.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” Darren says and lets go, ignoring the roll of Chris’s eyes.

“We’re not even shooting together.”

“I’ll visit you. An impromptu trip to the New York apartment, it’ll be great,” Darren insists.

The cab honks, and Chris stumbles back a step, giving out a startled laugh.

Lifting his hand in a parting wave, Darren bounces on the balls of his feet. “See you!”

Chris takes a hesitant step backwards, mouth working like maybe he wants to say something. The cab honks again, and Chris deflates. “Bye, Darren. Sweet dreams.”

*

“Darren, hey!”

Darren is halfway through turning to see who wants his attention when the voice catches up with him and an arm slides around his shoulders. He’s hit by a pleasant, subtle hint of aftershave and hairspray, and Ricky grips his upper arm, shaking him a little as they continue to walk. “On-screen boyfriend Darren,” Ricky uses what is apparently Darren’s full title.

“Mr. Martin!”

“Pfft!”

“Ricky,” Darren amends somewhat sheepishly. “What brings you here?”

Ricky’s gait is relaxed and unhurried as they make their way to the New York apartment set. “Can’t a Spanish teacher check up on his students?”

Laughing, Darren shrugs beneath the weight of Ricky’s arm. “Guess so. What do you want to know?”

“Hm,” Ricky hums thoughtfully, guiding them around a harried looking DA with little fuss. When he speaks again his voice is lower, more private. “Just wondering how things are going with you and Chris.”

“We’re…” Darren pauses, slowing down and almost stopping before Ricky’s hold on his shoulders urges him on again. “Good,” he settles on, though it isn’t quite right. “Better, you know? Than good. And we’re working on it.” He hopes.

Ricky squeezes him close, then sends him through the doorway to the studio first. “That’s good to hear.”

It’s good to say, Darren realizes, sidestepping around a set wall and hearing Chris a second before he sees him. He’s got his head thrown back, throat working as he lets out a wicked sort of cackle, and Lea is sitting next to him, smacking his arm and shoving one of her pumps back onto her foot.

They don’t get close enough to talk before a piercing voice calls for places, but Chris catches sight of them when he stands up, eyes going wide and feet going clumsy as Lea tugs him over to one of the beds, flopping down next to him and primly straightening her skirt.

 

Darren waves, and he catches Ricky nodding in his peripheral vision, and Chris spends the first take with the smallest smile curling up the corners of his mouth.

 

 

*

 

 

“You stayed,” Chris says, a little breathless, once the scene is wrapped. Lea’s on his heels, already out of her pumps again, and smiling brightly.

 

“Of course,” Ricky says, pulling him in for a hug. Lea hugs Darren, and then Ricky once he lets Chris go. Darren takes an awkward, aborted step forward once Chris is free, but with Lea and Ricky in between them they wind up simply staring at each other over Lea’s head. Chris gives a small wave, and Darren runs a palm over his gelled-flat hair, laughing silently.

 

“So what brings you here?” Lea asks, swinging one of Ricky’s hands in her own.

 

Ricky smiles and rocks to the side, bumping his shoulder into Chris’s. “I’m actually taking this one here out to dinner. I promised him a while ago and we never got around to it. You’re welcome to join us, of course.”

 

“Aww I’d love to but I’ve got another scene and then studio time,” Lea pouts. She swings Ricky’s hand again, nudges Chris with her elbow and air-kisses all three of them before someone calls her name and she’s forced to leave, rolling her eyes and hurrying away on her tiptoes, socked feet quiet on the wooden set floor.

 

Ricky turns to Darren. “And you? Join us?”

  
“Oh, I’ve,” Darren checks Blaine’s watch, wincing. “I’ve got a group number in like, ten minutes.” He thinks he sees Chris deflate a little at that, in disappointment or relief he’s not sure.

 

“Ah, some other time.”

 

Darren nods, looking from Ricky to Chris and searching for something to say that isn’t  _hey, let’s make out later_.

 

Ricky must take pity on them, because he murmurs something about being right back and claps them both warmly on the shoulder, backing away and leaving them to it.

 

“Hi,” Darren breathes.

 

Smiling, Chris huffs out a soft laugh. “Hi.”

 

There’s a pause, mildly awkward but mostly just amusing, where they look at each other and take turns opening their mouths to say something without actually following through. Chris glances down and drags the fingers of one hand up the opposite wrist, rubbing nervously.

 

“Your cuff!” Darren blurts, and then winces. “Just, you left your cuff. At my place. In the kitchen.”

 

Chris blinks at him.’

 

“I could bring it to you,” Darren offers, stepping closer when a member of the crew walks behind him with a case of camera equipment. “When I’m done? I could go home and get it and bring it to you. If you’re free, obviously.”

 

“I’m free,” Chris says quickly. “I mean, I will be.”

 

“Good. Tonight, then. I’ll call you, and then…”

 

“Come over.”

 

“Yeah.” Darren is grinning. He can feel it, stretched across his face and probably goofy as hell.

 

Biting his lower lip, Chris smiles back and then nods towards the stage door. “You’re gonna be late.”

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Go on,” Chris laughs, pushing at Darren’s shoulders.

 

Nodding, Darren waves and turns, a bounce in his step all the way to the choir room set.

 

 

***

 

 

Chris takes a bath, once he’s back from dinner with Ricky.

 

_(“Do you like him?”_

_“Of course, but-”_

_“Well then I don’t see what the problem is. Now, I was thinking Italian.”)_

 

He doesn’t usually take baths, preferring the efficiency of a shower to the romance of bubbles and scented candles, but he thinks he needs to relax.

 

_(“Maybe you need to unwind. Just let it happen.”_

_“I don’t let things happen. I_ make _things happen.”_

_“You’re cute when you pout. Hand me a bread stick, would you?”_

_“Here. I am not pouting.”)_

 

The water is hot and the bubbles are sweet-smelling without being cloying, and Chris settles back against the edge of the tub after submerging himself, staring at his knees and blinking slowly.

 

_(“It’s just, I don’t even know what he wants.”_

_“Yes you do.”_

_“Besides that, though.”_

_“You’ve never seen yourself helpless and gasping, obviously. What else is there besides that, really?”_

_“Ricky!”_

_“What?”)_

 

Naturally, once he finally manages to close his eyes and let some of the tension seep out of his bones he’s immediately shocked into sloshing half the bubbles over the edge of the tub by the tinny wail of his phone echoing through the bathroom.

 

It’s Darren, of course.

 

“Hi. Hello?”

 

“ _Hey, you okay_?”

 

Chris fumbles the phone in his wet-slippery fingers and manages to set it on speaker before putting it down on a hand towel. He leans against the bathroom counter and looks down at himself, the streams of water and bubbles streaking down his legs to pool on the tile. He shuffles sideways to the bathmat. “Um, yeah.”

 

“ _Good, good. You free_?”

 

“Hm? Oh, yes, yes.” Glancing around, Chris grabs his towel off the rack and scrubs at his hair, watching his phone in glimpses through the folds of terrycloth. “’M free.”

 

“ _Wonderful. I’m actually at your place_.”

 

With a sigh and a shake of his head that Chris is pretty sure Darren can read even through the phone, Chris plucks the phone off the counter and drapes the towel across his shoulders, heading into the bedroom. “Of course you are. I’ll be down in a minute.”

 

It’s actually a couple minutes before he makes it to the door, and even then he’s a little breathless, uncomfortably aware of the way his pajamas are clinging to his still-damp skin.

 

“Spiderman.” Darren nods, giving him a once over. “Nice.”

 

Chris pushes his hair back, getting his bangs off his forehead, and steps to the side, waving Darren in.

 

“So,” Darren says, hands in his pockets as he bounces on the balls of his feet in the entryway. “This is nice. You’re very moist.”

 

Chris shuts the door. “Please don’t ever use that word again.”

 

Leaning forward, Darren grins and then presses his lips together. “Mmmm-mph.”

 

Chris pushes his fingertip more firmly into Darren’s lips, partly for emphasis and partly because they’re  _very_  soft. “No.”

 

Darren’s eyes cross, trying to focus on Chris’s finger, and then his hands are warm on Chris’s wrist. The shock of the leather cuff snapping into place brings Chris up short for a moment. Darren kisses the pad of his finger, smiling again, and then turns and saunters down the hallway. “Where’s Brian? Haven’t seen the little devil in a while.”

 

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Chris shakes his hands out, the weight of the cuff unfamiliar on his right wrist. He follows Darren into the living room.

 

“There you are,” Darren is cooing, leaning over where Brian is somehow stretched across one and a half couch cushions and blinking long-sufferingly.

 

Chris watches as Darren sinks down next to Brian, carefully avoiding his flicking tail, and then pats the small stretch of couch left invitingly.

 

Chris sits down delicately, blushing as his thigh drags against Darren’s when he slots in between Darren and the edge of the couch.

 

“So,” Darren says, patting his own thighs and then wheedling at Chris’s forearm, dragging a finger against the fall of the hair there. “Takin’ a shower, huh?”

 

“Bath,” Chris manages to say, holding his arm very still.

 

“Nice.”

 

Swallowing, Chris watches as the rest of Darren’s fingers flutter down to rest against his skin over a vein, blue beneath the pale of his arm.

 

Brian chooses that moment to stretch and walk his paws up beneath himself, spinning in a deliberate circle and then stepping into Darren’s lap. He hoists his tail up, tolerating Darren’s hand at it strokes down his spine and then letting out an ambiguous mrrow as he slinks across Darren’s thighs to spin around and settle down on Chris’s, tail curling over the leather at his wrist.

 

“I see how it is,” Darren says, scritching under Brian’s chin, the backs of his knuckles bumping innocently against Chris’s thigh.

 

“Yeah.” Chris rewards Brian’s loyalty with a firm stroke down his back.

 

“Hey Chris?”

 

Chris looks over, his fingers buried in Brian’s soft, warm fur. “Yeah?”

 

“Is it okay to kiss you now?”

 

“Oh.” Chris takes a breath. And another. He nods. “Yes.”

 

Brian’s shoulders flex, small and strong beneath the curl of Chris’s fingers, and Darren touches his hand to Chris’s jaw, tilts him closer and sets their lips together.

 

It’s simple and firm, more of a push than a kiss, and Darren leans back a few moments in with a satisfied look on his face. “So did you have fun with Ricky?”

 

Chris, lips tingling and head spinning, blinks at him in confusion. “Ricky?”

 

“Mr. Martin,” Darren elaborates, already back to tickling under Brian’s chin, bending low to smile at him.

 

“Yeah, I… It was fine?”

 

Darren looks up without sitting up, gaze keen. “Did you do anything?”

 

“We had dinner,” Chris says slowly, his hand moving again after a moment, sliding across Brian’s silky fur.

 

“Ah.”

 

Eyes widening in realization, Chris reaches a hand up to poke Darren in the shoulder. “You’re  _jealous_  again.”

 

There’s a soft pause during which Chris watches Darren and Darren turns his eyes to Brian, scratching behind his ears and then down, skating his fingers around Chris’s stationary hand. When Darren looks up again it’s with a put-upon little huff and a quiet, grudging, “Maybe.”

 

“Well,” Chris says, heedless of the smile on his face and wiggling a little under Brian’s weight. “Maybe you should kiss me again, if that would make you feel better.”

 

“Purely for my sake, of course,” Darren reasons, twisting around until his knees press into Chris’s thigh.

 

“Obviously.”

 

“How could I resist?” Darren murmurs, lips inches from Chris’s.

 

It’s a good question.

 

Brian gets sick of their shenanigans almost immediately, squirming out from between them and thumping heavily to the floor. Chris feels light and cold and lost for half a moment, and then Darren throws a leg across his thighs, sliding into his lap and pressing insistently with his lips until Chris is pinned against the back of the couch, throat bared and hands skimming restlessly up Darren’s sides.

 

“I kind of want to tie you up,” Darren whispers eventually, lips dragging across Chris’s jaw and over to his ear, kissing down his neck. “If you want, if you-”

 

“Do it,” Chris whines, his hands lost and resting lightly at Darren’s hips. He squeezes at the waistband of Darren’s jeans. “ _Please_. Let’s do it.”

 

It’s difficult climbing stairs without letting go of each other, but they manage it. Darren eventually just grabs Chris tight around the cuff on his wrist and tugs him up, stopping every few steps to turn around and push an insistent kiss against his lips. Chris doesn’t protest, not that he finds it at all objectionable, but he really can’t say anything at all, not with the way Darren’s grip around his wrist steals the breath from his chest. Darren lets go when they get to the room, leaning against the wall to work his shoes off and leaving Chris to retrieve the cuffs.

 

Chris doesn’t  _rush_  to get them, not exactly, but he certainly doesn’t take his time, digging through his closet and then bouncing onto the bed, chain clinking and knees clumsy underneath him as he fumbles to pile the pillows up how he likes.

 

The bed dips beside him, and when Chris turns Darren is there, pulling their arms up between them and leaning in. The kiss is a slow, sweet pressure, drawing Chris in and turning the world dizzy, a buzz in his lips and his head and his chest.

 

“Lay down for me?” The words are warm breath against his lips, and Chris lets it happen, lets Darren guide him back against the pillows and stretch his arms up. Fingers skate down the ticklish skin on the insides of his forearms, and Darren bends down to rub their cheeks together. “You ready?”

 

Chris nods, shivering when Darren’s thighs bracket his ribs. Unsnapping the cuff Chris is already wearing, Darren drags the others up, and soon Chris’s wrists are encased in warmth, held tight and wrapped in leather. The keys are deposited on the bedside table, and Chris lets out a breath, shoulders sinking back into the pillows.

 

“Hey,” Darren says, scooting back, and Chris imagines it’s the cuffs and the broken open feeling in his chest that do it, but Darren sounds warmer, fuller above him.

 

It’s Darren’s body dropping , long and heavy, against Chris, that sparks the groan in his throat, fills out his cock and sends his body shaking.

 

“You’re okay?” Darren questions, up on his elbows and searching Chris’s face.

 

“I’m okay.”

 

Smiling, Darren brushes a thumb across Chris’s cheekbone, whispering, “You’re sweet like this.” Before Chris can find the words to answer, Darren is up on his knees again, ass settled on Chris’s belly and fingers trailing down his chest. “Can I touch you?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Where? Where can I touch you?” Darren’s hands are already stroking down Chris’s sides, over his chest and up to his neck, fingers tapping across his throat and his jaw.

 

“Anywhere,” Chris whines, feeling a tightness wind up taut in the pit of his stomach. “ _Everywhere_.”

 

With a smile and a kiss to his cheek, Darren slides off of Chris, kneeling beside him. “I can do that.”

 

 

***

 

 

Chris is tense when Darren settles beside him, hard and practically vibrating with it. Darren can’t help but notice the way his cock curves beneath the flannel of his pants, the way the line of his back hovers off the bed in fits and starts like the quivering of a bowstring.

 

He’s seized by a wild, twisting helplessness in his gut that tugs on his hands and wets his lower lip and makes it so that the only important thing in the universe in this one single moment is kissing Chris’s stomach through his shirt, just once, right next to his bellybutton, making it hot and damp with the wanting in his breath. His hands curl around Chris’s sides, fingers on ribs and palms on the soft, vulnerable stretch of skin just beneath them.

 

“ _Darren_ ,” Chris whines, pulling against the cuffs.

 

“Gimme a second,” Darren mumbles. His thumbs swipe along Chris’s t-shirt, pressing and stretching the fabric in opposite directions. He can see the outline of the dip of Chris’s navel now, thin cotton drawn taut across it. He leans forward, nuzzling in close to breathe into Chris’s straining stomach. His chin bumps Chris’s cock, his breath sucks into his lungs in a quick, sharp gasp, and Chris twitches his hips up, fucking against air and gritting his teeth.

 

“ _Darren_?”

 

The tremble in Chris’s voice is heartbreaking, and Darren is sliding up his body before he realizes it, kissing him hard and slotting a thigh between his legs. Darren’s own cock nudges Chris’s hip, trapped and aching in his jeans, and he grinds down as he kisses Chris into the pillow.

 

“Okay,” Darren pants into Chris’s mouth. “We’re okay.”

 

Chris chants Darren’s name, breathes it like a prayer and rolls against him, arms straining above him.

 

“You’re so sweet,” Darren kisses into Chris’s skin, under his jaw when he jerks his head back. “You feel so fucking sweet.” Working his arms up the length of Chris’s, Darren tangles their fingers together and slides all the way on top of Chris, bellies pressed together and cocks shoving, rough and hot, against one another. His toes scrabble for purchase against the bed, stomach clenching and heart pounding as he sets his teeth to Chris’s throat and squeezes his eyes shut.

 

It’s so much. Everything is so bright and so hot. His insides are pulling apart, twisting and writhing and drawing up tight, aching like his cock and his balls and his heart, pounding and throbbing and rushing in his ears.

 

“I can’t,” Darren hears himself say, hips shuddering to a halt, cock twitching. “I can’t, I can’t. Oh fuck, shit.”

 

He backs up onto his knees, heart still tight in his chest, and meets Chris’s panicked eyes.

 

“Hotdog?” Chris asks in a small voice, shoulders straining visibly and fingers clenching into fists.

 

“ _No_ ,” Darren exhales, “No, I’m sorry, I’m-” He drops down for a kiss. Chris’s mouth is slack beneath his for a split second before he kisses back furiously, suction and heat drawing Darren in. “I felt like I was dying,” Darren admits against Chris’s lips. “I’m so sorry. I couldn’t… breathe.”

 

“Slow,” Chris murmurs, nuzzling up and nipping. “Just, just lay down for a little while. We don’t have to  _do_  anything. You can uncuff me if you need to.”

 

Darren’s palms are sweating, his fingers buzzing in time with his heart as he touches them to Chris’s chin. “I want everything. Everything that you want. I think just, all at once it was-” He waves a hand in the air, “about to give me a heart attack.”

 

“Please don’t have a heart attack while I’m chained to the bed. Imagine the tabloid headlines.”

 

Darren laughs and drops down next to Chris, one leg still thrown across his thighs, and begins to trail his fingers up and down the center of Chris’s chest. “This okay?”

 

Chris nods, still watching him closely, and Darren clears his throat, changing the path of his fingers until he’s tracing them along the contours of Chris’s strung-up arms.

 

“Sorry. Again.”

 

“Yesterday you had to kiss me out of a panic attack,” Chris points out gently.

 

Darren lets his hand drag lower, back to Chris’s chest and then down to rest flat against his belly. “It’s weird how this makes it so much…  _more_ , you know?” Chris blinks and nods. Darren watches Chris’s eyelashes and then the curl of his fingers above the cuffs, and wonders if maybe it would feel remarkable anyway. “Can I touch you under your shirt?”

 

“Yeah,” Chris breathes.

 

Chris’s skin is as soft as Darren imagined it would be, smooth and warm to the touch as his fingers slip under the hem of the Spiderman shirt. His hand slides up, trapped in the heat between cotton and skin as he sets his palm over Chris’s heart. “Okay?”

 

“Okay,” Chris agrees, and Darren fancies he can feel Chris’s heart speed up under his touch. “More, if you want.”

 

“Fuck.” He has to sit up a little to ruck Chris’s shirt up, pushing it up until it’s bunched under Chris’s arms and then splaying his hands out on Chris’s stomach. It expands beneath his palms with Chris’s sucked in breath, and Darren closes his eyes and reminds himself sharply.  _Slow_.

 

Chris is watching him, mouth open and soft. “Still okay,” he says breathlessly.

 

Blinking for a moment, Darren looks back down at his hands, tan and rough against the smooth expanse of Chris’s abdomen, and slides them up until his fingertips slip beneath the crumpled hem of Chris’s t-shirt, until he can feel Chris’s heart again, rabbit quick and thrumming, and the delicate skin of his nipples, drawing up tight under Darren’s touch.

 

His breath comes up short, uneven and sharp in his lungs, and Darren leans down, weight resting on Chris’s chest. “Can I kiss you?”

 

“Yeah, yes,” Chris nods, wrings his hands around lengths of chain and lifts his chin.

 

“No,” Darren says, then huffs at himself, bending down to taste Chris’s lips briefly. “I meant,” he continues once he sits up again, scrubbing his palms up Chris’s chest. “Here. Can I kiss you h-”

 

“ _Yes_.” Ears flushing at the abrupt permission, Chris writhes a little, pushes into Darren’s weight and flutters his eyes closed. His cheeks bloom pink, pretty and glowing and hot when Darren presses a kiss there on his way down.

 

He winds up tracing the blush down Chris’s chest, his lips trailing over patches of red that creep down Chris’s sternum, flush out to his sides and halfway down his stomach. “ _God_ ,” Darren groans, lips catching wetly at the dip between two ribs. He keeps expecting Chris’s hands to come up and cradle the back of his head, hold him to a patch of skin or move him along to a new one, but of course they never come, and every time Darren remembers why, a flood of heat rushes into the pit of his stomach.

 

Chris is hard again, cock brushing Darren’s chest when he dips low to kiss around Chris’s bellybutton, and Darren doesn’t try to pretend like he isn’t affected by Chris’s startled moan, and the quick jerk of his hips after.  He climbs back up the bed, brushing over Chris’s torso and then nipping at his lips. “I’m gonna touch you now, if that’s okay.”

 

Chris nods, shallow and a little frantic, and Darren can see his throat work, the tendons straining in his neck as he lifts off the bed and lets out a muted whine.

 

“You can talk, if you want.” Darren kisses him again and moves back down, hands skimming Chris’s skin again and then stopping to play at the waistband of his sleep pants. Chris lets out a strangled sounding laugh. “Or just, make noises,” Darren clarifies, looking up to see Chris watching him, lips parted and wet. “Be loud if you need to. It’s okay.”

 

There’s a disconcerting moment of quiet and stillness, with Chris poised and wound tight, arched a few inches off the bed as Darren licks his lips and slides his fingers under Chris’s waistband, and then he tugs the pants down, whispering a breathless, “ _Fuck_.”

 

Chris’s cock is fat and pink and bounces up against his belly as soon as Darren frees it from the confines of Chris’s clothes. Chris is whining steadily now, hips bucking off the mattress and knees twisting in the tangled wrap of his shoved-down pants. “ _Fuck_ ,” Darren repeats, ghosting his fingers up the length of it and then setting his hands on Chris’s hips. He pushes down, hard, tearing his eyes away from the bob of Chris’s cock to look at the crumpled, desperate expression on his face. The shove into the mattress seems to calm Chris a bit, and Darren does it again, slower this time, more deliberate. “I’m gonna touch you, okay? But you need to breathe for me.  _Chris_.”

 

Chris rushes air out from between clenched teeth, nodding sharply.

 

Making his way back up Chris’s body, Darren takes his time, pressing his hands against Chris’s stomach, his sides, the thick curves of muscle where his shoulders meet his chest, sinking them down into the mattress, the pillows. By the time they’re face to face again, Chris is breathing steadily, slow breaths that expand his ribs beneath his skin, that round out the shifting muscles of his stomach and brush his chest against Darren’s.

 

“Gonna touch you now.” Unwilling to break the rhythm of Chris’s breathing with a kiss, Darren whispers the words high against Chris’s cheekbone, catching his lips on hot, blushing skin.

 

He snakes a hand down, dragging his fingers along Chris’s thigh and over, between them. Leaning up to watch, Darren takes in the flutter of Chris’s eyelashes and the sweet, wet bow of his lips as Darren palms his dick, pushes and drags it against Chris’s lower abdomen, soft skin sliding over hard flesh. Chris’s breathing hitches, goes fitful. Darren thinks that’s probably normal.

  
Sliding down again, Darren sets all his weight on his hands, resting them solidly just above Chris’s thighs, and licks firmly up the fat line of Chris’s cock, pressing it into the scarce, soft curve of flesh just below Chris’s bellybutton.

 

“Tell me,” Darren says, after Chris bucks them both a few inches off the bed and then shakes back down to it. “When you get close or if you need me to back off. You tell me, okay?”

 

Chris groans in assent, hips winding up insistently, and Darren lets him rub his cock against Darren’s mouth, smooth against his lips, shuddering but still unrelenting against the scuff of Darren’s stubbled chin.

 

“Let me,” Darren murmurs, pushing Chris down and kissing the red, slick head of his dick in apology. “Lemme hold you, hang on.”

 

Getting to his knees, Darren cups a hand over Chris’s cock, rubbing and pressing and letting Chris push up against it. His other hand fists against Chris’s stomach, and then flattens out, sliding up and tucking under Chris’s bunched-up shirt, higher, until it’s splayed at the base of his neck.

 

Chris cries out, shoulders going slack against the pillows at the curl of Darren’s fingers over his throat, but his hips keep moving, keep squirming and bucking and thrusting his cock against Darren’s hand.

 

 

***

 

 

Chris’s head is swimming, breath slurring in and out, drugged and swirling through his lungs. He’s floating. He’s floating, and the only points of clarity he can discern are the twin prints of Darren’s hands, one on his throat, keeping him tethered, and one on his cock, working him loose.

 

He fucks into the heat of Darren’s palm, grits his teeth against a moan, and watches the world blur by as his eyes roll back in his head.

 

_Chris_.

 

A touch at his belly, a gentle, warm sensation. A kiss. His cock throbs. His throat is heavy with Darren’s touch.

 

Darren says his name again.

 

“ _Chris_.”

 

Eyes snapping open, Chris feels Darren’s fingers twitch around his swallow, feels the thrum of his blood in his ears and in his cock and where Darren is mouthing over his heart. He says, relatively calmly, even if his voice is shot from all the moaning, “I’m gonna come,” and then Darren lifts his hands away, and Chris is crying out, cock twitching against nothing but air.

 

“No!  _No_ , Darren, please,” Chris thrashes against the cuffs, writhing and twisting and curling up against the ache in his balls and the punched-out emptiness in the rest of him. He lands on his side, and Darren’s already over him.

 

“Shh, shhh.” Hands stroke down Chris’s ribs, his hip. “I’ll take care of you, I promise.” A kiss to his jaw, fingers feeling delicately around his wrist, urging his arms to relax. “I  _promise_ , I promise. I’ll take such good care of you.”

 

Chris whimpers, turning into Darren’s kisses despite himself, and goes without protest when Darren guides him onto his belly. The chains clack as they cross above his head, and before Chris can come back to himself all the way, Darren is on him, stretched out over the length of him. The weight is blissful, even through the wracked-out shudders of falling the wrong way off the edge, and Darren is hard in his jeans against Chris’s naked ass, cock pressing hot through the denim. Darren digs his toes into the mattress by Chris’s ankles and grinds against him.

 

It’s slow, painfully so, and far too careful. Darren mouths at the back of Chris’s neck, twists his fingers in the bunched up fabric of Chris’s t-shirt, and painstakingly fucks himself in close against Chris’s ass. It’s gentle, and tender, and maddening.

 

“I’m not going to  _break_ ,”

 

“Are you sure about that?” Darren murmurs in his ear like a secret. The rush of air against the shell of his ear sends shivers and goosebumps across his skin, but the words themselves sink a stone through him, settling him further into his skin. His pulse is no longer a frantic dance through his veins but a slow and steady bass beat thumping through him, strong and inevitable, driving the need inside him.

“ _Darren_ ,” Chris moans, punctuating it with a yank at the cuffs, tightening his arms and twisting his wrists as he arches his back. His wrists are getting sore despite the soft lining, and he holds on to the sensation. “ _Please_ , just-”

“Shh, I’ve got you. Just, let me get…” He trails off, and then the warmth of him across Chris’s back disappears, leaving Chris jittery and on edge.

He watches as Darren’s shirt sails over the edge of the bed, grits his teeth and closes his eyes when Darren leans his upper half back down against him, skin naked and hot along Chris’s back, and then gets up on his knees. The sound of the zipper is muffled by the pounding of blood in Chris’s ears, but it still twists up a knot tight in Chris’s belly.

He rocks up, searching, when Darren moves off of him, heedless of the apologetic kiss to the back of his neck and the murmured, “I’ll be right back.”

“No, please, on me,  _please_.”

Hands smooth up the backs of his thighs, then brush back down, tugging at the pants tangled around his knees. His pants are pulled off, landing with a  _fwump_  somewhere out of sight, and Chris can hear Darren’s jeans meeting a similar fate.

Darren settles against him after working his way up Chris’s back with kisses and hushed, soothing words, holding Chris down with the hot, naked stretch of his body.

Darren’s palms quest up Chris’s sides, under the rucked-up shirt, across his shoulder blades and then farther, fingers carding through his hair as Darren pushes the shirt over his head. It catches at his shoulders, and Darren moves it until it hooks under Chris’s chin and stretches tight against his throat like an anchor, like an echo of Darren’s earlier hold. “Okay?” Darren asks, his cock dragging high on Chris’s ass and his fingers skating delicately down Chris’s sides. His lips brush Chris’s ear, and then behind it. “Okay?”

“It’s good,” Chris grits out, and Darren nuzzles into the back of his neck, letting Chris feel it when he smiles.

Darren’s hips roll down, sinking Chris into the mattress, pressing at his dick, trapped and hot between his belly and the mattress. Chris moans and curls a knee up, writhes until Darren’s cock slots between the cheeks of his ass, and then rocks back into the thrusts as Darren ruts against him.

“Will you touch me?” Chris begs, trying to fuck against the mattress and letting out a little wail when it leaves him aching hot and unsatisfied. “Please? Please will you touch me?”

“Shh, it’s okay.”

The hands at his sides skitter away. One moves up, curling under his shoulder and pulling him down when Darren thrusts up against him, the other snakes its way between Chris and the mattress, fingers dragging down the length of his cock before disappearing. Chris whines, jerking back, and then Darren’s hand is underneath him again, wet this time, and wrapping around him. It’s not much, he can’t move very well, trapped beneath both of them, but it’s real, a touch, and combined with the pressure at his throat and down his back, and the pull of the cuffs on his wrists, Chris is close embarrassingly quickly.

“Darren, Darren, Darren, I-”

“Just tell me. Tell me what you need.”

“Keep touching me.” Chris squeezes his eyes shut and shakes into Darren’s fist. “Don’t stop.”

“Are you…?”

“Yeah.” Sucking in a gasp, Chris nods and ducks his head forward between his arms, letting Darren suck and nip at the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m- Fuck, I’m-”

“Do it,” Darren urges, “ _Shit_ , I wanna get you off so bad.”

Darren’s name catches in Chris’s throat, and Chris goes stiff, the heartbeat in his ears whiting out into static. Legs shaking, his cock pulses beneath him and he spills messily, heat slicking over his belly, smoothing the glide of Darren’s fingers. Chris goes slack against the hold of the cuffs, fingers twitching uselessly as he shakes and jerks under Darren’s unrelenting weight, coming down in fits and shudders.

 

“Shit,  _shit_.” Darren scrabbles up to his knees, straddling Chris’s ass, and sets one hand in between Chris’s shoulders, leaning into him while his other hand, still slicked with Chris’s come, slides out from under them. Knuckles bump, quick and clumsy, against the small of Chris’s back, and it isn’t long before Darren’s groaning, deep and long, come splashing hot up the line of Chris’s back.

 

“Fuck,” Darren gasps. Chris arches his back, feeling the drag of Darren’s thighs around his ass as he slides off, slumping down next to Chris. “Turn over?”

 

Chris does, lifting up on one side to look at Darren, stretched out next to him and panting. Smiling, Darren slips his fingers around the back of Chris’s neck and tugs him in a little closer.

 

The kiss is sweet, sheltered between Chris’s strung-up arms, warm and secret. Chris is still dizzy from it when Darren ducks away to slide the key off the nightstand.

 

There’s a fine tremor running through Darren’s fingers as he works the cuffs off, a look of intense concentration on his face. Chris lowers his aching arms and watches Darren roll the chain up and set the cuffs carefully down on the nightstand before turning back with a worried sort of smile. “You okay?”

 

Nodding, Chris shrugs his shirt off down his arms and then uses it quickly to mop up the mess all over his stomach.

 

“Sorry I came all over you,” Darren murmurs, taking the shirt when Chris offers it and scooting closer so he can wrap his arm around Chris and clean up his own mess.

 

“It’s okay.” Chris inches closer and curls his arms up between them, rubbing at his wrists while Darren swipes the t-shirt up and down his spine. “I liked it.”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Mm.”

 

Darren smiles and drops the shirt over the side of the bed. “Poor Spiderman.”

 

“I’m sure he doesn’t mind,” Chris assures him, letting Darren take his hands and run his trembling fingers over Chris’s reddened wrists.

 

“I’ve always suspected he was a kinky little fucker.”

 

“All that sticky white web shooting out of strange places. Is it any wonder he’s fixated?”

 

“That’s disgusting and wonderful,” Darren informs him, holding Chris’s hands against his chest and leaning forward for a kiss. “What’s your stance on cuddling?”

 

“Pro. But,” Chris trails off, squirming, skin prickling with the chill of the room. “Under the covers.”

 

“Under the covers it is.”

 

A little while later, as soon as they’re both tucked warmly under the comforter, arms and legs tangled and heads on the same pillow, Chris blinks lazily and kisses Darren’s chin, the corner of his mouth. Darren’s hands have stopped shaking, and Chris feels heavy and solid, settled in his bones. He lets Darren nose against his cheek, feels Darren’s hot breath puff against his lips, and leans in close to whisper, “I nominate you to get up and turn the light off.”

 

“Of course you do.”

 

 

***

 

 

Darren wakes up slowly, tugged into consciousness in stages. The world beyond his eyelids goes from black to red with the rising of the sun. Little snatches of sound filter through his hazy, half-formed dreams. The shower turns on. Drawers slide open and thump delicately closed. Clothing rustles.

 

The bed dips up by Darren’s head, and before Darren can properly debate whether or not opening his eyes is absolutely necessary, something touches him.

 

He opens his eyes and discovers a cat batting at his hair.

 

“Hello,” Darren rumbles, trying to clear the sleep from his throat. Brian stares at him, and then steps on his nose.

 

“What- Brian!” Brian is lifted off the bed and deposited on the floor. “Sorry.” Chris sits down on the edge of the bed, wet bangs falling over his forehead, and lets Darren press questioningly at his wrists, still a little red-looking in the silvery morning light. “You should go back to sleep,” Chris tells him softly, turning his wrists over in Darren’s hands. “I’ve got an early call.”

 

Nodding, Darren presses a soft kiss against the thin blue veins in Chris’s left wrist and lets his eyes fall closed once more. “Later?”

 

Fingers stroke lightly at his temple, behind his ear. “Yeah. Later.”

 

 

*

 

 

Later is a relative term. Darren knows that, he does, but after three days it seems less like later and more like forever. He doesn’t even know where they stand, is the thing. He doesn’t know if they’ll ever do it again, or if it was even what Chris wanted, or whether Chris is grateful for their extremely incompatible shooting schedules or unreasonably annoyed about it.

 

Darren is firmly in the annoyed-about-it camp.

 

He shifts restlessly in his bed, tangled up in the covers and too busy glaring at the ceiling to attempt to fall asleep. There are three different texts drafted on his phone, ready to send as soon as he works up the gumption. They contain varying levels of desperation, from mild to severe, and Darren has saved one each day since he woke up alone in Chris’s house with a cat purring on his head.

 

“This is stupid,” Darren mutters, grabbing his phone off the bedside table and staring at it, thumb rubbing back and forth across the edge. “I should just… tell him hi. That’s normal. Or I could send him a picture.” A picture. Yes. Darren looks around the room for something interesting to snap a photo of.

 

He winds up taking a blurry picture of his feet, one with a multicolored striped sock only halfway on, bunched under his heel, and the other bare. He spends three minutes debating a caption, but finds that the only things he can think to say are ridiculous even by his standards. He deletes  _“I’m a mess without you”_  and “ _Come warm me up_ ” and then proceeds to exit out of his text messages completely, tossing his phone down with a huff.

 

It rings the second it hits the pillow, and Darren lets out a yelp before scrabbling to pick it up again. It’s Chris, and Darren answers in a rush, fearing the worst. “I didn’t mean to send that!”

 

“… _What_?”

 

“That, uh, never mind?”

 

“ _Okay_?”

 

Darren squirms up against the headboard, clearing his throat and wiggling his half-bare foot spastically until the sock flings off. “Um. How may I help you?”

 

“ _I just, uh, wanted to know if you were busy. If, if I could maybe come over?_ ”

 

“Oh, yeah, definitely. I’m not busy. I can’t even- I’m just… Really not busy at all. You can absolutely come over.”

 

“ _Oh good, ‘cause I’m actually a little bit, um, here. Already_.”

 

“No shit,” Darren laughs, rolling out of bed and skidding across the floor.

 

“ _Yeah_ ,” Chris says warmly. “ _I pulled a you, but it’s a little chilly out here and I kinda forgot my jacket_.”

 

“I’ll be right down. Don’t go anywhere.”

 

Darren hangs up, wishes he hadn’t, and then takes the stairs two at a time. He opens the door moments later, breathless and grinning, and immediately forgets anything that might be useful to say.

 

Chris stands there, flushed from the cold, and gives a little wave. “Hey.”

 

“Hi.” Shaking himself, Darren steps back and waves Chris in. “Oh, come inside, sorry. I’m just,” he pauses to wave a hand around erratically and shut the door. “Being weird. Sorry.”

 

“It’s fine.”

 

 “Okay.” Darren nods, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his sweatpants. “Did you wanna talk, or?”

 

“We probably should talk,” Chris agrees.

 

“Right. Are you okay, do you need sustenance? We could talk in the kitchen.” Gesturing awkwardly behind him, Darren takes a few steps down the hall to the kitchen.

 

Chris follows, ending up closer than he had been. When he speaks next his words are careful, eyes unwaveringly locked on Darren’s. “Actually, I was kind of hoping maybe we could talk in- in the bedroom. A bedroom talk.”

 

“A  _bedroom_  talk,” Darren echoes reverently as relief rushes through him, shivering hot down his spine. “The best kind of talk, I’ve always thought.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Darren’s gaze drops slightly, focusing rather intently on Chris’s pink, softly parted lips.

 

“I feel like maybe we’re about to kiss,” Chris breathes. Darren catches flashes of Chris’s tongue behind his teeth, and nods.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“Okay good, ‘cause I’ve missed that.”

 

Huffing out an understanding laugh, Darren steps forward and cups Chris’s jaw with his hands, drawing him in close. “Me too,” he whispers, gaze flickering between Chris’s eyes and his lips. “Like a lot.”

 

“Shut up and kiss me, then, jeeze.”

 

“ _Bossy_.”

 

Chris feels as good as Darren remembers, with soft lips and searching fingers that slide up beneath the hem of Darren’s shirt.

 

“Your hands’re cold,” Darren murmurs in between kisses.

 

Chris’s voice is sweet, softened by a sigh that Darren can feel against his lips. “Sorry.”

 

“S’okay.” Another kiss, and then Darren backs up, grabbing Chris’s hands where they’re tucked under his shirt and bringing them up between them. “I can warm them up for you.”

 

“Oh really?”

 

“Yes. I have a special method.” He rubs his hands over Chris’s, leaning down to breathe warm air on them. “Did you know the crotch is the warmest part of the human body?” Darren asks conversationally, injecting his voice with as much innocence as he can muster while he scuffs his palms across Chris’s folded fingers.

 

“I’m not giving you a handjob in the hallway,” Chris informs him.

 

“What about in the bedroom?”

 

“We’ll see.”

 

Darren laughs, tugging Chris with him towards the stairs. They trip clumsily up to the second floor, pausing only when Chris pins Darren to the hallway wall with a quick, searing kiss. It’s over as quick as it starts, and before Darren knows it, Chris is backing up and spinning around, heading unerringly towards Darren’s bedroom.

 

Darren lets out a noise he pretends isn’t a whimper and hurries after.

 

He catches Chris just inside the bedroom door, toeing his shoes off. Darren kicks the door shut as he pulls Chris in for another kiss, longer this time, not quite as urgent but still simmering with heat. Breath mingles and hands wander, and soon Darren is maneuvering them backwards, falling with a laugh and a yelp onto the bed before rolling over and half on top of Chris.

 

“Hey,” he whispers, leaning down to kiss under Chris’s jaw.

 

“Hi.”

 

Chris arches his head back, giving Darren better access to his neck. Cool hands smooth up Darren’s back, pushing up his shirt and then dancing back down, playing across the bared skin just above his waistband. Shivering, Darren squirms into the touch, and then down against Chris, before it hits him. “Oh fuck.”

 

Chris freezes beneath him. “What’s wrong?”

 

“I don’t have anything,” Darren breathes, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. “For, I mean, supplies, for… you know.”

 

“Oh.” Chris’s hands start to pet across Darren’s back again, the movements tentative. “ _Oh_. Well, I’ve got a condom in my wallet, but it’s from Ashley so there’s a good chance it tastes like something weird.”

 

“No,” Darren laughs despite himself, and opens his eyes again so he can aim his kiss, pressing his lips to Chris’s and then sitting up. He grabs Chris’s hands and brings them up over Chris’s head, leaning back down as he stretches up, sinking Chris’s wrists into the mattress with his weight. “I mean supplies for  _this_. I had to cut the silk, and the cuffs are at your place, and there was rope but Joey stole it to tie the Christmas tree to the roof of the car and I have no idea where it is n-mmph.”

 

Chris drops back to the mattress and smacks his lips with a fond smile on his face, snuggling down and flexing his wrists in Darren’s grasp happily. “Don’t need it.”

 

“You- what?”

 

“I. Don’t. Need. It. I’m good.”

 

“Oh.” Darren stares down at Chris, the sloping lines of his shoulders and the easy set of his jaw. “You don’t need it.”

 

“No. I’m full, uh, fully charged. Sort of. It’s hard to explain.”

 

“So thi-is,” Darren bobs and weaves his head to indicate their situation as a whole, and attempts to wrap his mind around the implications of what Chris has said. “This is just… Regular, normal sex.”

 

“Well,  _personally_ ,” Chris says, and the tendons in his wrists shift beneath Darren’s palms. “I tend to aim for slightly above average, but we can’t all have the same standards, I guess.”

 

“Totally vanilla sex. No kinky stuff,” Darren is still working it out, looking down at Chris in a new light. “Like, at all.”

 

“If you can’t handle it I could always go get the ketchup,” Chris tells him flatly, the fond expression on his face slowly being taken over by an unimpressed, grouchy look. His jaw sets and he looks to the side.

 

“No,” Darren tries to convey how pleased he is by the idea. “You wanna have  _sex_  with me.” Grinning, he hops a little, up on his knees, bouncing them both off the mattress for a second and getting Chris’s attention back. “Just sex.”

 

“Sometime this century, preferably, if you’re okay with that.”

 

Darren peers down at Chris, intrigued by the hint of doubt in Chris’s voice but unwilling to let it linger. “I’m so okay with that. You have no idea.”

 

Rolling their hips together, Chris gives Darren a small, relieved-looking smile. “I have a _small_  idea.”

 

“Hey!” Darren objects on principal, even as he grows harder at the contact. “Wait, if this- if we’re just having normal  _sex_  sex, then  _I_  could be on the bottom.” He actually feels Chris’s dick twitch against his own at that, and then he realizes what it sounded like. “Not like that. I mean, not  _not_  like that, but I was just talking… physically. Position wise.” Chris is laughing at him, his shoulders shaking silently. “Oh shut up.”

 

All of a sudden the world heaves, and Darren is thrown sideways, bouncing onto his back. He’s trapped against the mattress by a still-smiling Chris, who straddles his hips and leans over him, one hand pushing into the covers by Darren’s neck, the other resting firmly against his ribs. “Well?”

 

“Well what?” Darren breathes.

 

“How do you like it?”

 

Chris’s voice is open and happy, and his hair is falling softly over his forehead as he smiles down at Darren, the soft lamplight smoothing out the cut of his jaw. Something sticks in Darren’s throat, and when he’s finally able to talk through it he winds up spilling more than he should. “I think I’d like anything with you.”

 

“You’re such a cheeseball,” Chris lets him off the hook after taking the time to kiss him, and Darren finds himself a smile.

 

“A  _delicious_  cheeseball.”

 

“Is that so?” Chris bites his lip, leaning back to give Darren a once-over that leaves him shivering. Chris drums his fingers against the mattress, knuckles brushing Darren’s jaw, and then he sits up, “You know I kind of want to blow you just to see if your statement holds true, but to be honest I’m not sure if I could do it without laughing.”

 

“It’s the hotdog thing, isn’t it?” Darren says mournfully.

 

“Yeah.”

 

“I never should have told you that.”

 

“We’ll work up to it,” Chris suggests, and then the grip on Darren’s ribs lets up, and Chris is petting down Darren’s stomach to the waistband of his pants. “I think I remember something about a handjob mentioned earlier.”

 

“Oohh,” Darren lets out a shaky breath, pushing himself up on his elbows and watching Chris’s fingers play with his drawstring. “Yeah, that… I remember that.” Chris is smiling when Darren checks, looking down at him with a scrunched-up nose and a hint of teeth showing, and Darren pushes himself up farther, straining up for a kiss.

 

“I think we should be naked,” Darren murmurs against Chris’s lips. He wraps one arm around Chris’s waist and pulls himself up until he’s sitting, close enough to kiss Chris how he wants to, deep and purposeful. “Yeah.” He leans back, licking his lips and taking in the flush high on Chris’s cheeks, remembering the way it tends to bloom, pink and hot, all the way down his chest. “I really wanna get you naked.”

 

Chris sucks at his bottom lip, strokes his palm from the back of Darren’s neck down to his chest, and then shoves Darren back against the mattress.

 

 

***

 

 

In the time it takes Chris to pull his shirt off over his head, Darren’s grin goes from confused to delighted. His hands slide up Chris’s stomach and scratch back down, and Chris crumples in on himself at the prickling touch, crossing his arms and pushing them out with a huff until Darren’s hands fall away. “Now you.” Chris drops his hands and plucks at the hem of Darren’s shirt. A hint of his lower belly is already visible, dark, coarse hair disappearing beneath the waistband of his sweatpants. Darren raises his arms obediently, and Chris drags the shirt up, pulling it over Darren’s head and shoulders when he curls up obligingly.

 

“Excellent,” Darren says, hands coming up to Chris’s waist. “And now we kiss.”

 

“Are there step-by-step instructions?” Chris wonders out loud, bending down carefully and letting Darren lead the kiss. Darren bites his lip and tugs, pulling Chris off balance until he has no choice but to fall on top of Darren, chest to chest, barely catching himself in time to keep from bashing their teeth together. “You’re ridiculous.”

 

“Mmm, step three: no talking.”

 

“Step four: bite me.”

 

Darren drags his teeth down Chris’s chin with a playful growl, nipping and sucking his way over to just below Chris’s ear.  The warm puffs of his breath send waves of shivers through Chris, making the hairs on his arms stand up, and he lets himself fall. Clutching at Darren’s hips, Chris shoves against him, grinding them close and panting into Darren’s shoulder, until Darren, breathing heavily himself, turns his head to press a kiss against Chris’s cheek.

 

“Can the next step be unbuttoning my pants, please?” Chris asks, wincing at the ache of it as his hard cock shifts against his zipper.

 

“You’re in luck.” Darren grins against his cheek and slides his hands down. Chris lifts up a little, only enough so that Darren can slip his hands between them, and lets out a shuddering sigh when Darren undoes his button, rubbing at his cock through the denim. Chris gasps and thrusts against Darren’s hand. “ _Fuck_.”

 

Chris fucks down against Darren’s belly with a whimper, and Darren keeps swearing, bucking up to meet him, grabbing his ass to grind them even closer.

 

“Your dick feels,  _unh_ , fuck, really nice,” Darren groans. “Against my dick, I mean. They go, they go wuh-uhh,  _oh_!”

 

Chris laughs and squeezes his eyes shut as Darren snaps his hips up, pushing his mouth against Darren’s shoulder to muffle his own moan.

 

“ _Well together_ ,” Darren gasps, his hands clamping tighter to Chris’s ass. “They go well together.”

 

“Alert the presses, our penises are compatible.” Chris screws his hips down and drags his lower lip over Darren’s shoulder, stopping to kiss a freckle.

 

“You can’t say penis during sex, it ruins the allure.”

 

“Penis penis pe- Hey!”

 

Jerking back, Chris glares down at Darren, who grins and spanks him again, wiggling his head teasingly. “Handjob handjob handjob.”

 

“All  _right_.” Chris heaves himself up with a sigh and a shudder, getting to his knees and then stopping when Darren grabs his wrists. “What?”

 

“I don’t know.” Darren shrugs, letting Chris’s wrists go and leaning up on his elbows. “You’re just really hot right now and I want to look at you.”

 

Chris glances down at himself, kneeling and sort of hunched over, with his jeans unbuttoned and the head of his cock peeking out from under the waistband, and then back to Darren, who’s rumpled and flushed and a little bit sweaty. His cock is pressing out obscenely against the thin cloth of his sweatpants, obviously devoid of any sort of underwear, and Chris licks his lips without thinking. “You don’t look half bad yourself, but you should probably take your pants off.”

 

“Is that so?”

 

“Yes.” Chris nods, and then points and tries to look elegantly assertive. “Make it so.”

 

“Oh you glorious nerd, you.  You can captain my Enterprise any day.”

 

“I’m not quite sure how to interpret that,” Chris tells him, easing his jeans down his hips with a hitched breath and a sigh. “Like, what captaining is, specifically in this context, and what  _precisely_  you mean by your Enterprise.”

 

“Well, it’s mostly about my dick,” Darren explains helpfully as he hooks his thumbs under his waistband and drags it down, hips arching off the bed momentarily before dropping back. His cock springs up and smacks against his belly, full and hard and perfect. “I want you to commandeer it. Pilot it.” He wriggles the pants down and kicks them off once Chris slides off his legs to push his own pants down. “Touch it, with your hand. Just a little bit, that’s all I need,” Darren continues as Chris peels the jeans over his feet.

 

“God, you’re needy,” Chris mutters, bending over to kiss him quiet.

 

“In all seriousness, though,” Darren murmurs against his lips after a few moments of kissing, his hips rocking up against nothing. “Please put your hand on my dick, oh my god.”

 

“Yeah, alright,” Chris sighs, backing off and holding his right hand over Darren’s mouth. “Lick.”

 

“What, seriously?”  
  


“I don’t know how wet you like it. Lick.”

 

“Oh my god this is so gross. You’re so gross,” Darren says, and then licks Chris’s palm.

 

Chris smirks, climbing over to straddle Darren’s left thigh. “You’re totally into it.”

 

“Yeah,” Darren exhales. Chris reaches down between them and runs his wetted fingers over Darren’s cock before grasping it firmly and twisting his hand up. Darren sighs again, voice weaker this time as he rolls his hips into Chris’s grip. “Oh fuck. I really am.”

 

Attention torn between Darren’s slack, blissed-out face and the shiny pink head of his cock disappearing into Chris’s fist over and over again, Chris finds himself grinding down against Darren’s thigh in time with each flick of his wrist. He works Darren steadily, relentlessly, and when his grip gets sticky he scoots down the bed, ignoring Darren’s questioning moan to lean down and take the head of his cock in his mouth.

 

His own cock twitches against his stomach at the sound Darren makes, a drawn-out , rumbling groan that vibrates into the room and seems to concentrate at the base of Chris’s spine and linger in the pit of his stomach. He moans around Darren’s cock, taking more of it in his mouth and bracing a hand at the top of Darren’s thigh, holding him in place.

 

“Chris, oh my god. God.  _Fuck_.”

 

Chris pulls back a little and flattens his tongue against Darren’s slit, looking up to see him curl forward off the mattress and then flop back again, making a helpless sort of noise in his throat. His hands make their way across Chris’s shoulders and then into his hair.

 

“Jesus,” Darren whines, bucking up stiltedly when Chris sucks and slurps his way back down, fitting as much as he can in his mouth before backing off and trying again. “Ohh you have a mouth.” Chris snorts and pinches at Darren’s thigh. “Ow, fuck, it’s on my dick. Your mouth is on my dick. Shit. Stop pinching me, oh my god. My dick is in your perfect mouth.” Darren gathers handfuls of Chris’s hair, squeezing just tight enough to tug at his scalp before releasing and starting again. Chris leans into the pull, follows Darren’s restless hands and commits the feel and the taste and the smell of being heavy and held fast and cradled between Darren’s legs to memory.

 

He pulls up for a breath, cock sliding out of his mouth, and jacks Darren slowly, panting as he guides the slick head to rub over his wet lower lip.

 

“Kiss me,” Darren urges, laughing and jerking up when Chris sucks a kiss against his cock. “No, wow, up here. Get up here and kiss me before I come on your face.”

 

“Promises, promises,” Chris says. His voice is lower than usual, gruffer. He lets Darren pull him up, hands tugging at his hair, and then his shoulders, and then finally his ass. Darren kisses him sloppily, lips dragging across lips and teeth and chin as his hands knead at Chris’s ass. Darren guides him down, until their cocks are slotted together, close and hot, and then wraps his arms around Chris, strong, unyielding bars of heat, one around his waist and the other across his shoulders. Chris lets out a moan, a small, questioning noise that gets lost in the press of Darren’s mouth, and then they’re rolling over. Chris is caught in the cage of Darren’s arms, struggling to breathe against the weight of him.

 

Rolling his hips down, Darren leans his head back, scraping Chris’s lower lip between his teeth as he does, and exhales sharply as their cocks rub alongside on another, pressed tight between them.

 

“Next time,” Darren breathes, still circling his hips. “I’ll ride you. Okay?”

 

Chris can’t do anything but moan, twisting his hands together over his head and grabbing fistfuls of the blanket.

 

“You’ll teach me how to take your cock and I’ll ride you, hold you down and work myself on you. You can come inside me.”

 

“ _Fuck_ ,” Chris whispers, bucking up, the press of their hipbones almost as painful as the ache in his balls.

 

“Or maybe I’ll tie you up,” Darren suggests, dropping his head to press his eyes into Chris’s neck, breath gusting over Chris’s collarbone. “Turn you over and put my fingers in you, hold you down by the back of your neck and fuck you with my fingers ‘til you’re begging for my dick.”

 

Chris whines and wraps his legs around Darren’s ass to get him closer, to get him to fuck down quicker.  “Please. Darren,  _please_.”

 

“Fuck.” Darren snaps his hips down, rutting Chris into the mattress. “Sorry. I’m sorry, fuck.” His stomach heaves against Chris, tightening and trembling and pushing out, and he shoves in close, spilling hot and wet between them, jerking against Chris’s cock. He sobs in Chris’s ear, bites down at his neck and keeps working his hips, screwing down with shaking thrusts.

 

Darren’s arms snake out from underneath him to untangle his legs from around Darren, and Chris lets go of the blanket, body curling up as all the weight shifts off of him for one terrifying second and leaves him floating, anchorless.

 

It’s quiet except for the whine in his ears, an overwhelming vacuum of noise and sensation, and Chris reaches down, searching for something to hold on to.

 

He’s slammed back into himself by Darren’s palms at his hips, the weight of him a welcome shock keeping him from bucking up into Darren’s mouth when his lips wrap around Chris’s cock. “Yeah,” Chris moans, voice going high and tight as his legs wrap around Darren’s ribs and his fingers clench in Darren’s hair. “Yeahyeahyeah.”

 

Rocking into the  _wetslickhot_  of Darren’s mouth, Chris shuts his eyes and gasps against the quaking in his thighs, the bright, sharp heat that winds up tight in his gut, slinking and coiling through the rest of him, throbbing along with his pulse and his cock and drag of Darren’s lips against his sensitive skin.

 

He pulls at Darren’s hair, trying to warn him with a desperate, cracking moan, but Darren bobs his head more swiftly, letting up on Chris’s hip with one hand to wrap it around the base of Chris’s cock, jacking him tight and sloppy.

 

Chris comes with a broken-off moan and his cock in Darren’s mouth, back arched off the mattress.

 

 

***

 

 

Darren wipes his mouth and crawls back up the bed, gaze catching on the slippery mess of his come spread all over Chris’s shuddering stomach, before dragging up the rest of him to land on Chris’s face. His eyes are shut, his cheeks and lips red, mouth open as he struggles to breathe evenly.

 

“Hey,” Darren smiles, collapsing next to Chris as his eyes crack open.

 

“Hey.” Chris rolls over, tucking a hand under his cheek as Darren turns to face him. Their knees bump together, and Chris reaches out to swipe at the corner of Darren’s mouth with his thumb. “You swallowed.”

 

“Good source of protein,” Darren smirks, laughing when Chris wrinkles up his nose. “All in all, a good bedroom talk?”

 

“You’re quite the conversationalist.” Chris pats Darren’s chin and drags his fingers down, over Darren’s throat to the middle of his chest. He taps out a rhythm there, nothing Darren can follow, and smiles. “I like that you can’t shut up.”

 

“I meant every word.”

 

Chris keeps his smile he kisses Darren, fingers still rapping at his chest. “Good.”

 

  
*

~Epilogue ~

*

 

 

Darren readjusts his pants and sighs, staring at himself in the mirror.

 

“Have you seen my shoes? The shiny ones? I got them out and I don’t know where I put them.” Chris’s voice drifts in through the open door.

 

“They’re in the hallway by the bathroom,” Darren calls, turning around and then stopping short when he glimpses the pile of cuffs on the dresser. He reaches up to touch one of them, tracing the edge of the stiff, black leather fondly.

 

Chris breezes through the doorway, shiny shoes dangling from his fingers, and plops on the edge of the bed to put them on. He looks over at Darren, tugging the laces of the left shoe loose and slipping his foot in. “Why aren’t you dressed?”

 

Plucking dejectedly at his open dress shirt, Darren flops down next to Chris and slumps over, setting his head on Chris’s shoulder. “My nipples are really sore and every time I try to button my shirt, I get a boner and it’s super obvious in these pants.”

 

Snorting, Chris works his right shoe on. “You’re the one who’s so obsessed with those damn clamps.”

 

Darren groans and buries his face in Chris’s neck, sliding a little closer and trying to surreptitiously get in a pre-straddle position. Chris flicks him on the ear and stands up, letting him face plant against the mattress. “Uh uh, cowboy, suck it up. We’re not gonna be late, not again.”

 

“Alright, alright.”

 

Darren manages to dress himself, finally, thinking unpleasant thoughts the whole time and miraculously remaining boner free. They’re almost at the door when Chris snaps his fingers and bounds back up the stairs. “Be right back! Almost forgot something.”

 

He comes back with a lint roller, smiling sheepishly. “Cat hair.” He runs it all over his front before handing it to Darren and turning around. “Do my back?”

 

“You are the worst,” Darren observes, swiping the roller over Chris’s butt. It looks fantastic in the pants Chris is wearing, tight and pert, and Darren knows exactly what it feels like, inside and out. He swallows and breathes in deeply through his nose, distracting himself by glaring at Brian, who observes the whole process serenely from his perch on the back of the sofa.

 

“I’ll do you back,” Chris says sweetly over his shoulder, redirecting Darren’s attention back to him and his damnable ass. “Don’t worry.”

 

Darren grits his teeth. “The absolute worst.”

 

 

*

 

 

The carpet isn’t even red, Darren notes, taking a few steps more and then turning to face the cameras. It’s kind of orangey. Darren says so to Chris, who smiles and rolls his eyes.

 

“Darren!” “Chris!” “Over here!”

 

“How about one of both of you?”

 

Darren shuffles closer to Chris. The camera flashes flood his vision, making his eyes water and ache. He blinks repeatedly, reaches out a pinky to brush gently at the bare skin of Chris’s wrist, and smiles.


End file.
